by Weeks, Abby
With that, their waitress arrived. Veronica ordered a round of fancy, expensive cocktails that Ariel had never heard of.
“So what brought you to Beverly Row?” Veronica said.
“We’re all very curious,” Trudy said. “What’s your life story?”
“Well, there’s not that much to tell, really,” Ariel said. “I got married to Gabe when I was eighteen. He was twenty-three. I was pregnant.”
“With Becky?”
“Yes, that was Becky.”
“She looks like a dear.”
“Oh, she is. I couldn’t ask for more from a daughter.”
“And where’s Gabe now?”
“He lives in Santa Monica. He has an art gallery there.”
“Any place we’d have heard of?” Veronica said.
“Monochrome?”
“Oh, I know that place. That’s impressive. So your husband is a rich art dealer. How sexy?”
“Ex-husband,” Ariel said, “and I suppose he is. But the funny thing is that he hid the money from me for our entire marriage. We lived in a little bungalow in Pomona and I never even imagined I’d be able to live somewhere like Beverly Row.”
“Wow, hiding money like that is quite a feat,” Veronica said. “I’d kill Hank if he tried to hide so much as a dime from me.”
“I know Jake hides money from me,” Zola says.
“Well,” Ariel said, looking at all three women, “it’s surprising how easy it was for Gabe. I had no idea. If the IRS hadn’t audited him the year we split up, I’d never have suspected a thing. Turned out he’d been stashing money in secret accounts for years. He used to go on these buying trips overseas and I always felt bad sending him off the way I did, with just the bare minimum budget to do the business he needed to do. Then I found out he’d been living the highlife all along. He was having the time of his life in places like Cannes, Vienna, the Bahamas, Paris. At one point he even had an apartment in Manhattan that cost eight grand a month.”
“And you knew nothing about it?”
“Not a thing. And I hardly had two bits to rub together making ends meet in Pomona. I mean, we had enough to live, but we never had any extra money. I had to buy cheap groceries. I couldn’t always buy Becky the clothes she wanted. I lay awake at night and worried about bills. Gabe always said that was the price we paid for being in the art market and I just believed everything he told me. For sixteen years I lived like that. I was so shocked when the government sent me Gabe’s tax bill that I almost fainted. That was when I started to put all the pieces together. And then I got mad. Very mad. The first thing I did when I got my settlement check was buy the house on Beverly Row.”
“It’s a beautiful house,” Trudy said. “I thought of buying it, myself.”
“Trudy!” Veronica said. “You live two doors down.”
“I like the pool better.”
“You both have beautiful pools,” Zola said.
Veronica cleared her throat. She was still thinking about Gabe hiding all that money from Ariel for all those years. “Let me tell you, if Hank ever tries anything like that I’ll cut his balls off.” She swung her rich, red hair over her shoulder in a way that made it look like she meant every word of it.
“Veronica’s on her third marriage,” Trudy said.
“And I’m in it for the money,” Veronica said.
Ariel put her hand in front of her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“It’s no secret,” Veronica said, “believe me. Hank knows it, too.”
“That’s funny,” Ariel said.
“It’s the way it is and I don’t try to hide it. I married for love in my twenties. That was a mistake. My second marriage in my thirties was for lust. Alejandro from Barcelona. What a lover he was! There is a certain kink I have that Alejandro was able to satisfy for me just perfectly.”
Ariel saw Zola and Trudy exchange glances. “What?” she said.
“A certain kink,” Trudy said, and laughed.
“What is it?”
“Girls,” Veronica said. “Stop it. I’m trying to be serious. Basically, Ariel, I married for love and I married for lust and neither time did it work out for me. So this time, when I met Hank, I was upfront. I told him I wasn’t looking for the greatest lover in the world, I wasn’t looking for Prince Charming to sweep me off my feet, I just wanted a decent, steady, loving man who would take care of me and my son.”
“And he agreed?”
“Look at me,” Veronica said, smiling mischievously. “How could he refuse?”
Ariel smiled. Veronica was a glamorous looking woman, definitely a lot better looking than her husband. Hank had looked a little boring at the party and Ariel supposed the arrangement he and Veronica had made perfect sense. Veronica gave him her beauty, her sexiness, she let him show up at events and business functions with a glamorous wife, and in return Hank brought home the bacon, paid for everything, and gave Veronica the financial security she needed for herself and Kyle.
But something niggled at the back of Ariel’s mind. She wanted to know what the kink was that Alejandro had been able to satisfy so perfectly for Veronica.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Veronica said. “Hank and I have a loving, committed relationship. I’m a good wife to him. I really do love him. But I didn’t hide the fact that I wanted stability and security, that’s all.”
“I guess there are worse things to base a marriage on,” Ariel said.
“There certainly are,” Zola said. “If I could switch out my marriage for something like Veronica’s I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Oh, come on,” Trudy said. “Jake’s fifteen years older than you. Admit it, Zola. You married for money too.”
Zola shook her head sadly. “I wish I had,” she said. “Then it might not hurt so much.”
Trudy put her hand on Zola’s shoulder to comfort her. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s alright. Really. I wish I’d married Jake for his money because then it wouldn’t cut so deep when he cheats.”
“Oh, Zola,” Trudy said.
“I just don’t know what to do,” Zola said. “I mean, you all know what he’s like. He’s a bully, he’s a cheater.”
“He’s a complete jackass,” Trudy said.
“Thank you,” Zola said, tearing up, “but I still love him.”
The four women were quiet for a minute.
Ariel broke the silence. “Gabe was a cheater.”
“And did that make you stop loving him?” Zola said.
“It did, but only after years and years. I forgave him so many times that it became meaningless. I was married to Gabe for sixteen years and I’d say he had affairs for at least twelve of those years. All short-term flings. Lots of different women.”
“How did you put up with it so long?” Veronica said.
“I don’t know,” Ariel said. “Self-esteem issues, I guess. I just thought that was what I deserved.”
“That’s exactly the way Jake is,” Zola said. “He says his affairs mean nothing. He says I’m the only woman he comes back to, time after time. He says he loves me but that he can’t help what he does. He says it’s a sex addiction.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Ariel said.
“It’s very difficult to live with,” Zola said. “I mean, I try not to blame him for it because it’s a real addiction and he can’t help it, but then, it’s just so bad. You know? He doesn’t even hide it from me. I’m afraid to go anywhere near his computer or his phone because I know I’ll find conversations he’s having with other women. Women he wants to meet up with for sex.”
“That’s really hard,” Ariel said.
“Or men. As often as not he’s having conversations with their husbands.”
“Their husbands?” Ariel said in surprise.
Zola shrugged. “That’s the world we live in.”
Ariel was dumbfounded. She’d never heard of anything l
ike it in her life. She looked around at the other three women but none of them seemed that taken by the news.
“He speaks with their husbands?”
Zola waved her hand like she didn’t want to talk about it. “That’s a thing now,” she said. “Men set up encounters for their wives. I think it’s sick.”
“They set up encounters for other men to sleep with their wives?”
“Yes. It’s a thing on the Internet. Jake is really in to it.”
“Am I the only one who’s never heard of this?” Ariel said.
The other three shrugged.
“I’ve heard of it,” Trudy said. “If my ex had ever offered that, I’d have been all over it!”
“Trudy!” Veronica said.
“What? I would have. You try being married to a man who’s almost thirty years older than you.”
“How did you finally break up with your husband?” Zola said to Ariel.
Ariel sat back in her seat. The waitress came with another round of cocktails. Ariel downed her drink and ordered another. She felt she needed it.
“Well,” she started. “For me, a lot of things happened at once. I’d tried everything with Gabe. We’d gone through counseling. I went to support groups for women with cheating spouses. We’d even tried explaining his behavior as an illness or an addiction. And a big part of me believed it was an illness. I knew he loved me. I knew he loved Becky. And I knew too that he just couldn’t stop himself from cheating on us. He just physically couldn’t stop. No matter how much hurt it caused.”
“That’s exactly how it is with Jake,” Zola said.
“And we’d go through periods where things were so good between us. We really were a good match in a lot of ways.”
“Which just made it harder to end things, right?” Zola said.
“Yes. It did. But Zola, after a few years of therapy sessions and group counseling and support meetings, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was constantly asking myself what the point of it all was. Why did I have to have a support group just so that I could survive my marriage? A healthy marriage shouldn’t require a support group and a therapist. I know sex addiction is a thing people have, an illness, but for me, I just couldn’t stomach it any more. At a certain point, I just came to the realization that addiction and behavior, illness and decision, they become indistinguishable. You are your decisions. The problems Gabe and I were having were the result of decisions he was making on a daily basis. I couldn’t just remove his responsibility from the equation by calling his behavior an addiction. It was still his behavior. Those were his decisions. And I didn’t want to be married to the man that made those decisions any more.”
“So you split up?”
“Well, it was at the same time that the IRS sent me a tax bill for over a million dollars. I got an accountant to look into it and it seemed Gabe’s sex addiction wasn’t the only thing that was wrong with our marriage. He was also hiding over six million dollars from me. So not only did I have a reason to divorce him, but all of a sudden I had the means to start a new life too.”
The three women looked at her wide-eyed.
“Good for you,” Trudy said.
“Yes,” Veronica said. “Good for you, Ariel. You took back control of your life and did what you needed to do to get a sense of security and peace for yourself and your daughter.”
“I hope so,” Ariel said.
They each took a sip of their drinks. And then, Zola burst into tears.
“Oh, honey,” Trudy said, comforting her.
“Zola,” Ariel said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Oh, I’m just being silly,” Zola said. “It’s just, sometimes I feel like you women have gone through such difficult processes to get to the places you are in life. You’ve all made sacrifices and difficult decisions and now you’re happy.”
“I’m not happy,” Trudy said with a grin.
“Me neither,” Veronica said. “Are you, Ariel?”
“I just got divorced,” Ariel said. “I’m completely alone, a single parent, and my only friends are you three!”
Zola smiled. “Thank you, girls. It’s just, I know I have some difficult decisions of my own to make. Things I’m going to have to face if my future’s going to be a happy one.”
“Have you thought about leaving Jake?” Ariel said.
Zola looked up at her. “Truthfully,” she said, “I think about it all the time, but I just don’t know if I have the strength. I’d be leaving with nothing. I signed a prenup before we got married. I’m just afraid of loosing my home, loosing my security, and starting over from scratch with nothing. That scares me. I don’t know if I have the courage to do that.”
*
ARIEL GOT UP TO GO to the washroom.
“You girls want another round?” Trudy said.
“I do,” Zola said.
Veronica got up from her seat. “Ariel, I’ll join you. And yes please, Trudy, order another round.”
The washroom was as opulent as the rest of the bar with white marble fixtures and cut glass lighting. The cocktails had gone to Ariel’s head and she said something to Veronica that she ordinarily would have been far too shy to bring up.
“Veronica, can I ask you something?”
Veronica looked at her and grinned. She was a little drunk too. “I think I know what you’re going to ask but go ahead.”
“What was the kink that Alejandro was so good at satisfying?”
“It’s nothing, really. It’s just something I mentioned one time and now the girls will never let me live it down.”
“I take it that it’s something that Hank has no interest in?”
“Hank? Ha! He doesn’t have an erotic bone in his body, pardon the pun.”
“He’s conservative?”
Veronica sighed to herself. She was touching up her makeup in the mirror. “Hank’s a great guy,” she said. “He’s good to me, he’s good to Kyle, and I’ve seen enough of the world to appreciate that much. He’s a good man and I love him for that.”
“But he’s not a passionate lover?”
“His idea of a romantic night is making all the spreadsheets in his accounting software balance up! He’s an accountant, through and through. He’s really quite boring.”
“And you’d prefer someone more adventurous.”
“Honestly, yes. What I had with Alejandro was perfect. I’m dying to be treated like that again. He was a man who knew what a woman wanted. A woman like me at least.”
“And what is that?” Ariel said, intrigued.
Veronica turned from the mirror and looked right at her. “I want to be taken. You know? I want a man who wants me and isn’t afraid to do what he wants to me. I want a man who isn’t afraid to take me and take me hard. That’s what I want. I want to be taken.”
“And that’s not Hank.”
“That’s not Hank at all. He’s so gentle. He’s kind. But he’s too gentle, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do.”
Ariel looked at Veronica. She really was a beautiful woman and now Ariel saw that there was so much more to her than she’d originally noticed. On the surface Veronica was prim and proper and looked like the perfect wife, but underneath, she was a whirling mess of emotion and desire. And she wasn’t being satisfied.
Veronica leaned over and whispered in Ariel’s ear.
“I probably shouldn’t even say this, but what I want more than anything is to be taken in the ass by a man who wants me so badly he’s ready to explode! That’s what I want and I want it so bad it hurts.”
“You want butt sex!” Ariel said, laughing out loud.
“I want it so hard I can’t walk the next day!”
IX
“MOM, WHERE ARE THE SHORTS we bought last week?”
Ariel rolled her eyes. Becky had been fretting about getting ready for over an hour. She always got like this when her dad was coming to see her. She got so excited. Ariel was happy for her but sometimes she worried. She kne
w how it felt to be let down by Gabe and in the back of her mind she knew that he would let Becky down sooner or later.
“They’re in your closet, honey.”
She heard Becky run across the landing to her bedroom.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The doorbell rang.
“I’m not ready, mom. Will you get it?”
Ariel breathed deeply. She’d seen Gabe on numerous occasions since the divorce and he’d always been polite and friendly. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive as she went to the door. She stopped at the mirror and examined herself. She’d already touched up her makeup but she brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
“Darling,” Gabe said when she opened the door.
“I’m not your darling.”
“Oh, I know, honey, but you know what they say about old habits.”
“That they’ll kill you?” Ariel said, dryly. She made her way back to the kitchen and Gabe followed her.
“Nice spread,” he said.
“It’s amazing what a couple of million dollars will get you these days,” she said. Gabe looked embarrassed when she said that but she didn’t care. It was all money that he’d purposely hidden from his own family for years. “Your daughter will be down in a minute.”
“Mom,” Becky called from upstairs. “Can I wear your lipstick?”
“You don’t need lipstick. It’s not a date, honey.”
“Please.”
Ariel sighed. She looked at Gabe. “It’s a date,” he whispered from across the kitchen.
Ariel called up the stairs. “Just a little, honey. And hurry along. I’m sure your dad’s anxious to get going.”
Gabe was giving her his charming, boyish smile. It was the same smile she’d fallen for when she was eighteen and he’d gotten her pregnant. He’d always had a way with her and he knew it.
“So what are you going to see?”
“I don’t know. We’ll just go down to the Chinese Theatre and see what’s playing.”
“You’ll be back by ten? It’s a school night.”
“Sure. Has she eaten dinner?”
“No, she wanted to eat with you.”
Gabe smiled. He looked at Ariel. She knew he still found her attractive, even after all the years and all the things they’d been through. She found him attractive too but she’d been through so much with him that she didn’t allow herself to notice.
