A Good Divorce

by John E. Keegan

  “Pretty.”

  “What kind of build?”

  “She speaks German and reads eastern poetry. She’s also been a belly dancer and a palm reader.”

  “A perfect fit. The lawyer and the moonbeam. How’s she built?”

  “You’re so deep, Warren.”

  “Come on, you’re telling me you don’t care?”

  “She looked great in a swimsuit.”

  “You went swimming?”

  “Wading.”

  “And? Come on, you’re holding out, Cyrus. I invite you into my soul to talk about my love life and have to pry out of you whether you had sex?”

  “This is more than sex. I’m nuts about her.”

  Warren insisted we take the afternoon off and go golfing. We hadn’t played golf together since Dad’s heart attack three years ago. “The tees will be deserted. We can finish eighteen holes in three hours.”

  Warren was right. If I didn’t sometimes shirk my job, it would own me. “As long as we get home in time for the kids,” I said. “This is my weekend.”

  We swung by the apartment and found my clubs in the storage locker underneath the empty suitcases, skis, and camping gear. Warren’s were under his bed, with dustballs clinging to the canvas. “Sheep’s wool,” he called it.

  We put the top down on his Mustang and I turned up a Louis Armstrong song on the radio. “That guy’s rasp’ll scrub the grime off you,” I yelled, as we sailed down the freeway, chiming in whenever we knew the words. Our golf bags stood up in the backseat like a couple of old pals. We were in college again, skipping chem lab. People waved at us.

  The pro at Jefferson directed us to the first tee without a wait. By the second nine, the remains of the six-pack we’d stashed in our bags had warmed and the cans foamed over when we opened them on number ten. We stopped keeping score when Warren lost three balls in the ravine on number eleven. Instead of fighting the obstacles, we joined them. If we didn’t land in the traps, we’d kick our balls in so we could practice our sand shots. Whoever sprayed the most sand won. We used a one club-length rule, which allowed us to move the other guy’s ball behind trees and fenceposts. When I won best ricochet by playing off a maintenance shed to get back onto the fairway, Warren rolled in the grass like a dog with fleas. By the time we reached the clubhouse, it was dark and my arms felt water-logged from so much swinging and my cheeks rubbery from laughing.

  I could hear the tape deck playing in the kids’ bedroom as I snuck by on the sidewalk. Jude had dropped them off early. Still a little buzzed from the beer, I crept down the stairs, put my golf clubs back into the locker, rifled through the ball pocket for a piece of Spearmint and tried to think of a good reason why I was wearing jeans instead of a suit. Even though the kids disliked the idea that I worked so much, I couldn’t bear to let them know I’d goofed off. It was a transparent ploy for their sympathy. The martyr dad. Derek met me at the door, and looked me up and down as if we’d traded places again.

  “Where you been, Dad?”

  In situations like this with my own dad, I’d learned that the best way was to say very little and be humble. “How you doing, son?”

  Justine joined us with a book in her hand and I hugged them both at once, praying they wouldn’t smell the beer. “Where’ve you been, Dad?”

  “With my brother. Warren,” I added.

  “You’ve been playing pool or something.” She must have smelled the Rum Crooks.

  “I had to help him with some stuff.” They still looked unconvinced. This was the spot I’d always stumbled on with Dad. I wanted to go to my room, change clothes, and brush my teeth.

  When Lill called on Monday to tell me that Isolde was gone, the adrenalin started leaking through the balloon-smooth surface of my glands again. “Just ring the bell, and I’ll let you in,” she said, and I wondered if it was a Freudian slip.

  “Give me twenty minutes.”

  I stripped off my shirt as I ran for the shower. If it was just talk she wanted, we could have gone to the Deluxe or the bar at Jimmy Woo’s. For that matter, we could have done it by phone. This had to be something more. I soaped myself and imagined what it would be like washing her hair. I’d read in Ms. that the quantity of hair on a woman was a measure of testosterone and I tried to visual Lill’s body hair.

  The buzzer in her door latch was still vibrating like an alarm clock as I crossed the foyer; she must have thought I was slow-handed. The interior of the elevator had brass handrails and a see-through glass door the same as the elevators in the Smith Tower. It moved slowly as I peered at the rose carpet on the second floor, more humming and jostling as we passed the third floor. It ran out of steam and bounced a few moments on the fourth floor before the door opened. The air in the hallway was stale, another reason I never wanted to live in a conventional apartment. At least in the basement of the Alhambra, the smells were invigorating ones like laundry soap and Purex.

  Lill touched me lightly on the arm as I entered her apartment, an ambiguous gesture, something between a shake and a mistake. I was beginning to love her place. There were plants climbing on poles out of Grecian urns, vines drooping from baskets hanging in the corners, and infant plants in the incubator on the window sill. It was Hammurabi’s garden and Lill smelled as fresh as mint.

  “You have quite a thing for flora,” I said.

  “It’s my small way of restoring the balance between civilization and the jungle.”

  “I applaud the maternal urge.”

  “It’s a matter of motivation,” she said. “Gender has nothing to do with it.” Barefoot and in a full skirt, she looked as if she’d been dancing to the Rolling Stones from the tape deck on the bookshelf. I inspected the hair on the backs of her calves as she went to turn it down.

  While she was in the kitchen to get us wine, I checked out her bookshelf, which was a feminist reading list—Sylvia Plath, Doris Lessing, Germaine Greer, Kate Millett—but there were also male authors I’d read—Tropic of Capricorn, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Summer and Smoke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Lord of the Flies, and Leaves of Grass. Maybe we could find a middle ground. On the notepad next to the phone, spiral doodles emanated like wisps of smoke from the words, “Call Jude.”

  She returned with two glasses and set them on the coffee table, one on each side of a fishbowl with pink coral. Without saying anything, she pulled a pillow off the couch, dropped it on the floor and lowered herself Indian-style as her skirt billowed like a parachute and settled over her legs.

  I took a seat on the couch. “I guess you called this meeting.”

  She laughed nervously. “We have a problem.”

  I scooted to one side so I didn’t have to look at her through the fishbowl.

  Lill sipped her wine, eyeing me over the rim. “I happened to mention to Jude how much Isolde liked you and, of course, that led to the trip to the beach. I couldn’t lie, Cyrus.”

  “What else?”

  “Well, I didn’t tell her I tried to screw you with your pants on, although I think that’s what she suspected. She knows me too well.”

  I looked at the black-iron fire escape that ran diagonally across her living room window. The marmalade sunset made the room glow. “We haven’t done anything we have to apologize for.”

  “I don’t want to do a head trip on her, Cyrus. She’s a friend.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Her face was a mask bronzed by the sunlight, and it was difficult to tell if this was hurting her as much as it was me. “I don’t want to add to her pain.”

  “I’m supposed to get her clearance to see you?”

  “I don’t blame you for being pissed.”

  “What about you? Jude blanches and you retreat?”

  “I feel caught in between.”

  “Can’t you tell her to back off?”

  She was shaking her head. “We need to cool it for a while until things settle. She needs me.”

  “I need you too.” I was the boatman on the River Styx ready to row her
across.

  “Jude and I tell each other everything. There would be things I wouldn’t want to tell her.”

  “So don’t.” She was forcing me to display my capacity for duplicity.

  “I care for her. I can’t.”

  “And you and I were just a couple of dogs in heat? Another GI?”

  She dropped her head. “That’s not fair, Cyrus. I like you. I think you have a lot to offer.”

  “That’s what they always tell the runner-up.”

  “Let’s wait,” she said, “that’s all I’m saying. The timing is shit.”

  She gave me a hug at the door, making sure her breasts didn’t make contact. It felt more like the embrace of an elderly aunt. I was the last one to let go.

  I kicked a beer can ahead of me in the street on the way home until I lost it under a pickup that was loaded with chunks of broken drywall and twisted door frames from some remodeling project. The rain had made pockmarks in the plaster dust. There were a couple of crushed Miller cans and a ripped pair of cotton work gloves tossed into the corner of the load. I tried to imagine a path that stretched from here to my grave and walking it alone.

  Jude answered on the second ring. I tried to be as matter-of-fact as I could.

  “Maybe you can tell me what you said to Lill.”

  “About what?” Jude surprised me. This was the kind of confrontation I thought she relished.

  “You know about what. About me and her.”

  “I was just surprised that Lill was seeing you, that’s all.”

  “What’s so surprising?”

  “You don’t seem like her type.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Lill is sensitive and earthy.”

  “And what am I?”

  “Cyrus, this is ridiculous.”

  “If you can’t tell, I’m upset. If you want a divorce so bad, why do you care who I see?”

  “Lill’s my friend. I just wanted to give her a word to the wise about your relationship skills.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this, Cyrus. If you want to know, Derek hit a clothesline pole with his bike and had to have three stitches. He’s fine and I’ve got to go.”

  “Let me talk to him?”

  “He’s in bed.”

  “Tell him I’ll call in the morning. And don’t lean on Lill. Please.”

  “Lill has a mind of her own. Goodnight.”

  I felt like we’d just boxed a round and I needed to jog to cool down. My heart was still racing. It didn’t square. Something else was up.

  Leo Pescara, the contractor who wanted to set me up with Sophia Loren, called again, this time with a case that was four weeks from trial and red hot. He’d fired the attorney who represented him in the Monticello case, the woman who I thought had put on a heroic case, considering the evidence. Despite my recommendation, he refused to consider a continuance. He said I wouldn’t have any trouble; he’d watched me work. Leo Pescara was Napoleon, probably someone who’d been mocked on the playground. He had a long lip and short arms. This time, he’d gotten into a shouting match with the owner’s architect over the design of a glass dome in an office building overlooking Elliott Bay. The owner was livid when the city pulled the building permit, blamed Pescara, and sued to recover everything they’d already paid him. It was another playground fight and Leo wasn’t going to let anyone push him around.

  “You know where the jugular is,” Leo said. “A woman lawyer doesn’t know her asshole from a blowhole.”

  It dawned on me that Leo hadn’t fired his prior attorney; she’d fired him. As Leo raged, I wondered if he would have hired me if I told him my wife had just flattened me in a single phone call.

  I was eating a frozen lasagna dinner out of the aluminum tray and reading a story in U.S. News about Hurricane Frederic in the kitchen of the Alhambra when the doorbuzzer rang. The story said the World Meteorological Organization had voted to no longer give only women’s names to hurricanes and I wondered how something as macho as a hurricane could have ever been classified as strictly women’s business anyway. Then the buzzer jangled like it was stuck.

  “I hear you, I hear you!” I ran to the squawk box and pushed the speaker button. “Who is it?”

  Several voices crowded into the intercom from the other end. “Dad, it’s us! It’s us!” They must have been attacked in the Broadway District or someone was chasing them.

  I took the stairs two at a time, carrying my fork, my napkin still tucked into my belt. I pictured bloody faces with gravel ground into their skin. When I opened the door, they burst in like a storm, dumping their wet bags and sacks in the hallway. It was pouring outside.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Magpie’s shake sent water oscillating like a sprinkler. Justine wrapped her arms around me and Derek wormed his way between us, both of them mumbling incoherently. Hands grabbed at my mid-section as I balanced myself in the middle of the baggage. The door was still open and a sheet of water that overflowed the rain gutter blurred the view to the street. A passing car sprayed water wings from his tires.

  “We ran away,” Derek said.

  The rain, tears, and runny nose merged on Justine’s face. “Do you know about Mom and Lill?” I suddenly felt chilled. There’d been an accident. “Dad, I’m not going to live there.”

  “Whoa, what are you talking about?”

  “Lill,” Derek said, “it’s Lill!”

  “She’s moved in with Mom,” Justine said. “They told us they’re lovers.”

  The air in the hallway was suddenly very thin and I started to sweat. I didn’t even know what words to use. I called on my best lawyer skills, the ones you used when your witness has just gone south and you had to pretend you knew it was coming. If I’d just let out what was in me, I would have embarrassed myself and frightened the kids. A tangle of limbs and body positions raced through my mind as I tried to separate Jude’s, mine, and Lill’s. I didn’t even know exactly what women did together. Why didn’t one of them warn me?

  “If anyone at school finds out, I’ll die,” Justine said. “I don’t want to be queer, Dad.”

  “Let’s talk about it downstairs.” I reached out to pat her on the shoulder, but by the time my hand got there, she’d bent over to pick up her athletic bag. Pools of water beaded on the rose tile in the entry hall in a complex pattern of lakes and canals. Derek was sullen but not crying. I put the fork in my pocket. “Does your mom know where you are?”

  “We just left,” Derek said.

  I’d never felt them cling to me this way; they always ran to Jude when they were scared. “We can call her later,” I said.

  “Don’t call her, Dad!” Justine said. “She’ll make us come home.”

  “I don’t want her calling the police. She’ll be worried.”

  “She doesn’t give a damn,” Justine said, pushing my door open so hard that it banged against the stereo. “Sorry.”

  “Change into some dry clothes.” I wondered if I sounded like someone had knocked the wind out of me.

  I listened to them talking as they headed down the hallway, each one offering the other first choice on beds. This was a change of approach. Apparently they were staying for the night or at least until we figured this thing out. I squatted to pet Magpie and the prongs of the fork jabbed me in the groin. I set it on the footlocker coffee table. Magpie’s pant looked like a smile, and I petted her wet forehead skin back over the crown of her head. A crescent of white showed just below the eyelids each time I stroked her.

  There was so much I didn’t know about what was going on at the old house. I wondered if this had started before Jude and I separated. All those Sunday night women’s groups, maybe it was just Jude and Lill. I didn’t know if the phlegm in my throat was jealousy of Jude for taking Lill away from me or bitterness at Lill for seducing Jude out of our marriage. I couldn’t really believe they were lesbian. Jude was striking out at me and Lill was just playing house w
ith her best friend. They’d read too many books on sexual politics. Men read Hustler and turned into predators; women read Ms. and turned gay.

  While the kids were changing, I turned off the TV and tidied up the living room. Derek emerged in a pair of maroon cotton pajamas with a faded Captain Marvel insignia across the chest and plopped onto the floor next to Magpie. A band of bare leg showed above his wool socks. “What do you think’s happening, Derek?”

  He squirmed and petted the dog under her collar. “She’s been acting different. She does whatever Lill wants and she’s bossier than a cow with us.”

  “She’s always been bossy,” Justine chimed in.

  “I know that,” he said, bending his toes back, crushing his knees against his chest.

  “I don’t care about her bossiness.” Justine had put her pink terry cloth robe over her sweats and sat dead center on the couch in her fuzzy slippers. “I just don’t like the way they’re hugging and putting their hands all over each other.”

  “They even kiss.” Derek made a spit-it-out face.

  “What did they say exactly?”

  “We had a big meeting,” Derek said. “We had to all sit down in a circle and hold hands. I thought she was going to say we had to get rid of Magpie.”

  The crying seemed to have strengthened Justine. “She said they loved each other like a husband and wife. I know what a lesbian is, Dad. I know what they do.” She shuddered. “Does this mean I’ll be a dyke?”

  “Where’d you hear that word?”

  “Da-ad,” she moaned.

  “No,” I said, very unsure of myself. “It doesn’t mean that at all. There’s no one else in our family who is.” As I said that, Jude’s Aunt Harriet flashed across my mind. She’d never married and always took those mysterious car vacations around the country with old friends. In her slides, the friends were always women. I wanted to tell Justine she’d be “normal” but realized that would disparage Jude. It wasn’t that I felt any great charity towards Jude, especially just then, but it was a matter of some pride that one of the few vows we’d managed to keep was to refrain from bashing each other in front of the kids.