Secrets of a Shoe Addict

by Harbison, Beth

  And what if Damon showed up again?

  She’d kill him, that’s what. She’d already fallen off the pious wagon. No matter how hard she tried, apparently it wasn’t good enough for God, so she wasn’t doing him any favors anymore.

  Vengeance is the Lord’s her ass.

  She should have known this was going to happen. Damn it, damn it, damn it, it was all her fault. She knew how ruthless Damon could be. Had she imagined a decade in prison had softened him? Of course not. And now she’d dragged Brian into her own swirling black karma, and now he was the one paying the price. And Parker.

  And yes, she was, too. But it wasn’t fair that there should be other casualties.

  All because of some stupid stolen necklace some jerk had asked her to hold on to a thousand years ago.

  A jerk she never thought she’d see again.

  “Mrs. Walsh?”

  Abbey only half heard her name, then realized Ida Duncan was talking to her. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Your husband is in surgery.”

  Surgery. They wouldn’t operate on a dead man.

  There was hope.

  “How serious is it?”

  Ida glanced at what appeared to be notes on Brian’s case, on her computer. “We won’t know anything until the doctors come out.”

  Abbey slumped in her chair and raised a trembling hand to push her hair back out of her face. “Do you know what happened? I mean, I know there was an accident, but I don’t know where, I don’t know how, I don’t know anything.”

  “Mr. Walsh was in a single-car accident on Glen Road. No one else was involved.”

  Glen Road. Abbey hated that winding, hilly road with all its blind hairpin turns.

  “The police are trying to piece together what happened, but it appears that he lost control of his car while rounding a curve.”

  “But he’s a careful driver,” Abbey said, more to herself than to Ida Duncan.

  Yet it was Ida Duncan who answered. “Accidents happen sometimes, even to the most careful driver.”

  No they didn’t. Not to Brian.

  He was just caught in the crossfire of her war with God.

  “You can wait in the waiting room now,” Ida said, standing up.

  Once again, Abbey followed the slight woman through the sterile halls of the hospital, until they got to a waiting room with uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs and several TVs with a fuzzy picture of CNN playing with the volume down low.

  A young couple sat, looking worried, on one side of the room, so Abbey took a seat on the other side so all of them could have privacy in their anguish.

  “Can I get you anything?” Ida asked. “Coffee or tea maybe?” Abbey shook her head. “Thank you.”

  Ida looked like she wanted to say something else, but she just smiled and gave a single nod. “The doctors should be out soon.”

  It was 2 A.M. when Abbey, after hours of waiting, half watching CNN, and drinking cup after cup of bad coffee, finally left the hospital, assured that Brian was in stable condition post-surgery.

  He’d had a ruptured spleen and a punctured lung, in addition to several cracked ribs and broken teeth. The doctor had told her that, although Brian looked a mess, his chances for a full recovery were excellent.

  She’d been allowed to see him, though only for a moment, because he was recovering in the intensive care unit.

  At first, she hadn’t even recognized the swollen, purple-bruised face as her husband’s.

  “Sorry . . . I’m. . . I’m late.” His voice was labored, and he gave a feeble smile.

  That was when Abbey lost it. The waiting room experience had been very much like her ritual on an airplane, concentrating all her will to make everything come out okay. She hadn’t exactly felt strong, but she’d been stoic.

  Now that was over.

  She clasped his hands in hers and bowed her head. “Don’t try to talk.”

  “ ’S okay.”

  “No, it’s not. You have to save all your energy to get well.”

  “Just wanted . . . some . . . time off.”

  She gave a laugh through her tears. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Caribbean?”

  “Too . . . obvious.”

  “Oh, Brian.” She closed her eyes against a new onslaught of tears and felt them drip off her lashes.

  “Go home,” he said, and raised a hand to try to stroke her hair. But the IV made it cumbersome and he was weak, so he dropped it back down. “Sleep.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

  “I’m going . . . sleep.” He looked at her through lids at half-mast. “Go.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Go.” His voice was weak but commanding. “I . . . mean it. Go. Parker.”

  She knew him well enough to know he meant it. And that she wouldn’t do him any good hovering over him all night.

  “I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” she told him. “Before you even wake up.”

  “Don’t . . . dare wake . . . me up.” His blinks were becoming longer and longer.

  She knew he needed to sleep.

  “Good night,” she whispered, and bent to kiss his swollen cheek as lightly as she could. “I love you.”

  She meant it more than she could possibly express.

  Chapter

  18

  Tiffany was wide awake.

  Fortunately, Parker had knocked off hours ago. After staying up an hour and a half past Kate’s bedtime, running around like zoo animals—much to Charlie’s disapproval—Kate and Parker had finally conked out on the bunk beds in her room. For once, Tiffany didn’t care if Kate was up too late. Some things were more important than a regimented bedtime schedule.

  “How long is that kid going to be here?” Charlie wanted to know. He’d just spent the evening in his “den,” a fairly soundproof room in the upstairs loft, complete with a fifty-inch high-definition TV, a stereo that cost more than some cars, and a couple of recliners. It wasn’t like it had been a hardship for him to go up there.

  “He’ll be here until his mother comes back,” she said crisply. “Maybe longer than that. His father was in an accident.”

  “Oh.” She hoped that would shut him up. But no. “Don’t they have family around somewhere?”

  Ever since their conversation about finances, Tiffany had begun to see Charlie in a new light. Or maybe it was the same light, but it felt new. Something inside her had wilted, but with the newfound freedom she was discovering with her work, she realized that she didn’t need to stay in a marriage that made her feel so awful all the time. She was able to make it on her own, if she needed to.

  And she was really beginning to think she needed to.

  “They have friends, Charlie. Me. And I’m going to take care of that boy, and help his mother, until they don’t need me to anymore.”

  “Okay, okay.” He raised his hands in surrender, but the gesture was far too little and way too late. “You don’t have to bite my head off. I was only asking.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were telling. You were telling me that this emergency of someone else’s was interrupting life in your little world and you don’t like it. Not only do you not like it, but you blame me. And I think that really stinks, Charlie, I really do.”

  He rolled his eyes and let out an impatient puff of air. “I only asked one little question. Give me a break, would you?”

  She looked at the man she’d married more than a decade before and realized, with sickening clarity, that she didn’t really know him at all.

  More important, she didn’t really like him.

  “By the way,” she said, surprised at how detached she felt, “when I was doing laundry the other day I came across a bathing suit in your stuff. What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do. It was right on top of the pile of laundry I took upstairs.”

  He shrugged. “No clue.”

  She hadn’t been pr
epared for complete denial. Lies, yes. Pretend befuddlement, sure. But pretending the suit didn’t even exist at all?

  She didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Stop trying to obscure the point,” Charlie said, clearly coming out on the offense now. “A man has a right to privacy in his own home.”

  “Apparently he thinks he has a right to it in his marriage, too.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Separate bank accounts, separate credit cards, separate lives, Charlie.”

  “I told you that was for business.”

  She thought about answering, but why? There was no winning this argument. She didn’t even want the prize.

  “Leave me alone,” she said.

  “Gladly.” He walked off, the years and pounds weighing what was once a lanky gait into what was now an angry one.

  She watched him go and it occurred to her that she wouldn’t mind one bit if he just kept right on walking.

  Something inside her was changing, and it wasn’t just tonight, or the mysterious bathing suit, or the accident, or Charlie’s remarkable lack of hospitality.

  It was everything.

  A year ago, she wouldn’t have thought going broke and becoming a phone sex operator would be good for her, but to her surprise she found herself worrying less about every little thing. Just realizing how unpredictable life could be, and how things seemed to work out even in unexpected ways, was strangely reassuring.

  And freeing.

  So at this moment, when she’d normally be envisioning all kinds of terrible outcomes for Brian Walsh, she was actually pretty sure Abbey was going to come back and say he was going to be okay.

  While she waited for that, Tiffany watched all the late-night interview shows, even the ones she normally couldn’t stand. Finally, at 1:45 A.M. she decided to make a cosmopolitan. Actually, she decided to make a pitcher, just in case Abbey needed one when—and if—she returned tonight.

  Fifteen minutes later, Abbey’s headlights illuminated the front window, and Tiffany went outside to meet her.

  “Is Brian okay?”

  Abbey sniffled. It sounded like maybe she’d been doing a lot of that. “It looks like it.”

  Tiffany’s shoulders relaxed for the first time all night. “Oh, thank God. I was so worried.”

  “I’m sorry,” Abbey said immediately. “I should have called and given you an update earlier.” She frowned as if that were an important detail. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  “Maybe because your husband was in the hospital.” Tiffany put her arm around Abbey. “Come on in. Would you like a drink?” She didn’t care that Abbey was the pastor’s wife; she was her friend, and she was going to offer her a drink without worrying about right or wrong.

  “I would love a drink,” Abbey said, giving a weak smile. “Make it a double.”

  “Cosmopolitan okay?”

  “Moonshine would be okay at this point. Listerine. Anything.”

  Tiffany slipped her arm through Abbey’s—a gesture she’d never done before—and said, “Come on, then. You’ve had a hell of a night. It’s time to relax a little, if you can.”

  It took some time before Abbey’s cool façade broke. Tiffany had taken her to the back sunroom, where they could have complete privacy, and had poured out three cosmos before Abbey finally said something meaningful instead of just polite.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “What?” Tiffany wasn’t prepared for this. Abbey was always so strong, so cool.

  “I’m sorry.” Abbey waved a hand weakly, then put her hands over her eyes.

  “Abbey.” Tiffany didn’t know what to do. Pour more cosmo? Offer coffee? Ask her to say more? Distract her so she didn’t get too upset? “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “It’s my fault,” Abbey insisted, almost angrily. “It’s my fault.” She leveled her gaze on Tiffany with an unmistakable challenge in her eyes. “This is all about me.”

  “What do you mean?” Tiffany asked.

  Abbey closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

  “You can talk to me. Abbey, it’s clear you need to get something off your chest.”

  Abbey shook her head, wordless.

  Tiffany put a hand on Abbey’s. “You can talk to me.” She meant it. She had never seen someone in so much pain as Abbey was, and she wanted to do anything she could to help. And at the moment, it looked like Abbey needed to let something out or burst.

  “Can I?” Abbey looked up at her with reddened eyes. Her pupils were small, giving her an almost hostile look.

  But Tiffany stood her ground. “Yes.”

  “And you think you could just listen and keep it to yourself?” Abbey challenged, like a child who was angling for one answer but fearing another.

  Tiffany nodded. “Yes.”

  And then Abbey broke down.

  She could not remember a time in her life when she had cried so much or so hard. Sobs came out in silent heaves, her tears hot and seemingly endless.

  Later, she’d probably be embarrassed. But right now it felt like if she didn’t let it out, she’d explode.

  “I married Brian for the wrong reason,” she said through ragged breaths. “He deserves better.”

  “What do you mean?” Tiffany soothed. “Why did you marry him?”

  Abbey took one long, slow breath. Then another. Feeble attempts to quell the hysteria bubbling beneath her surface.

  She had to get it out.

  She had to tell the truth.

  Finally.

  “I married him to save myself.”

  “Save yourself?” Tiffany looked puzzled. “Save yourself from what?”

  Abbey swallowed. Hard. “Eternal damnation.”

  Three thirty in the morning, and Loreen couldn’t sleep. She’d been tired all day, barely able to keep her eyes open, so why she woke up suddenly in the middle of the night was a mystery.

  After tossing and turning from 3:01 A.M. until 3:30, she logged on as Mimi and waited for the phone to ring.

  It didn’t take long. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her, but almost immediately she had a call from a guy who sounded almost young enough to be calling on his parents’ dime while they were out of town.

  Another ten minutes passed in the darkened room, and the phone rang again.

  “This is Mimi,” she said, trying out a new Mimi voice. This was more of a Betty Boop thing.

  “Mimi?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Anonymous.”

  After weeks of doing this, she was prepared for just about anything. “Hey, Anonymous. What can I do for you?”

  “I tried to call you earlier, but you weren’t working.”

  “You can talk to anyone at Happy Housewives,” she said. The Betty Boop voice had been a mistake, though. This was going to be very hard to keep up. “We’re all glad to talk to you.”

  “Nope.” His voice was starting to sound familiar. “They tried to pass me off onto someone else, but I wanted to talk to you.”

  She went with it, despite the disconcerting feeling she might know him. “Okay, Anonymous, what do you want to talk about?”

  “My wife.”

  Wait a minute.

  Loreen shifted in bed. “Your wife?”

  “That’s right.”

  It was Robert.

  “Maybe you should call your wife on her own phone instead of paying three bucks a minute to talk to her,” Loreen said.

  “No, no. This will do.”

  She dropped Mimi’s sexy inflection altogether. “Not if you have a kid going to college in a few years.”

  “I can afford it,” Robert said. “It’s for a good cause. I understand some happy housewives got into a little bit of trouble in Vegas.”

  Loreen smiled to herself. “Okay, then, Anon, what’s up?”

  “Well, like I said, I want to talk about my wife. That is, my soon-to-be ex-wife.”

  That ex. It always bugged her. It sounded so .
. . hostile. “What about her?”

  “Well—” He expelled a sigh. “—she probably wouldn’t believe it if I told her, so I thought I might run it by you first. Maybe you can advise me.”

  “What is it?” Was he going to tell her he’d met someone? That he was getting married? Was he so afraid she’d freak out that he wanted to pay the PTA for her time, to mollify her?

  She braced herself for his answer, trying to steel her heart against breaking, even though they were about to be divorced and she wasn’t really supposed to feel any of this kind of stuff anymore.

  “Well . . . my soon-to-be ex-wife—I’ll call her Lor . . . etta.”

  “As in Lynn?”

  “Exactly. She loves country music.”

  Loreen rolled her eyes. She hated country music. “What about Loretta, the country music queen?”

  He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Thing is, I think I’m still in love with her.”

  Loreen’s stomach clutched. “What?”

  “I know, I almost can’t believe it myself.”

  “Is it . . . true?”

  She could picture him nodding. “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Wow. So. What would you want Loretta to do with that information?”

  “I’d want her to consider it for what it is: the truth. See, I told her I thought she was a control freak and that she was concentrating too much on our son and not enough on me, but I learned recently there was more behind it.”

  Loreen swallowed. “And how did that make you feel?”

  “Like a jerk for not wondering what was going on with her sooner. Instead I got pissy about how it was affecting me.” He sighed. “We probably should have gone to counseling.”

  Tears welled in Loreen’s eyes. “She probably should have taken care of you more,” she acknowledged. “If she had, maybe you’d still be married.”

  “We are still married,” Robert said.

  “Technicality.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” He took a long breath. “I love her. I want to grow old with her.”

  She gave a laugh because it felt better than crying. “Women don’t like to think about growing old.”