“Hmm? Oh, that’s just my foot. Mrs. Walsh—”
“I go by the name Laura Briggs.”
“Wise decision, keeping your maiden name. Makes a lot of things ... simpler. Do you have credit cards in your name?”
“Yes, I made a point of—”
“Good credit rating?”
“Yes, I always—”
“Own checking account?”
“Uh, no, we—”
“Open one immediately. First thing tomorrow. Today, if you can get to the bank. Own savings account?”
“No, I—”
“How about bugs?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you know how to plant a bug in the phone?”
“Of course not!”
He shook his head. “Child’s play.”
Laura opened her mouth to protest. But she stopped when she saw that for the first time since she’d entered his office, Irwin Hart’s eyes had met hers. “Ms. Briggs, these are all mere details, things we can work out over time. What I started to say is that what’s important here is for you to know that should you choose to have me represent you in your divorce, I can guarantee that I’ll get your husband by the ...”
He lowered his eyes to his right hand, an eerie smile creeping slowly across his face.
* * * *
Laura opened the back door quietly late that afternoon, hoping to sneak up to the bedroom undetected. The last thing she was in the mood for was a confrontation with Roger.
She’d left her brief meeting with Irwin Hart seriously unnerved. Instead of feeling calm and in control, as if she now had a pillar of strength on her side, she felt as if she’d stepped into a Fellini movie. She headed for the first phone booth she could find, and made desperate calls to friends and friends of friends. Fortunately, they were able to come up with the names of half a dozen lawyers. She set up three firm appointments with likely prospects, which took the edge off her anxiety.
Her mission completed, she’d been at a loss as to how to spend the rest of the day. While her word processor beckoned, she couldn’t bring herself to go home. Roger was bound to be there. It was her wedding anniversary, and the last person she wanted to spend the day with was her husband.
So she’d done what any other woman living in the suburbs would do: she headed for the mall. Aimlessly she’d wandered about, fondling merchandise she had no intention of buying. Glancing around, she saw she was hardly the only one spending the day this way. The place was amazingly filled with people just hanging out.
Finally, Laura slunk into the house as silently as a jungle cat, ruminating about the plot of her latest book.
So she was completely caught off guard when she discovered she’d just stepped onto the set from Fantasy Island.
The dining room was dark except for the pale, flickering light cast by the candles in the middle of the table. There were four, mismatched, lopsided, half-burned. Laura recognized them immediately. They were the ones she and Roger used during their first months of marriage, back when making love still seemed like one of the basic necessities of life. Seeing them again made her cringe.
A bottle of champagne sat alongside two glasses, white with frost. Roger, standing in front of the little surprise he’d concocted, had to have grabbed them out of the freezer as she was pulling into the driveway. Behind him, in a tall vase, was a big bouquet of long-stemmed red roses, the official flower of people in love.
“Roger, you shouldn’t have—”
“Happy anniversary.”
“But—”
He held up both hands. “Don’t say a word, Laura. Just listen. You owe me that much, after fifteen years of marriage, don’t you?”
“I suppose so.” Her voice quivered.
“Okay. I admit that what I did, going on Donahue like that and spilling my guts, probably wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve even done.”
“I bet Norm and Dwayne feel the same way.”
“As for lying to you, not to mention going through most of our savings—”
“Please.” Laura shut her eyes tightly. “I can’t even bear to think about that.”
“I admit I was wrong. I really screwed up. But now that everything’s out hi the open, we can start to talk.”
She sighed. “Roger, I’ve been trying to find a way to talk to you for fifteen years. I’ve tried being nice. I’ve tried being direct. I’ve even tried ignoring you, concentrating on my own life and trying not to be too bothered by the fact that ever since the beginning, our marriage has caused me nothing but heartache….”
“We can start again.”
“It’s too late.”
“What about the house?”
Laura looked around the dining room, cast in shadow by the flickering candles. She expected to feel pangs of remorse. And so she was startled by the absence of even the slightest reaction.
“We’ll sell the house.”
“Laura, this is our house.”
“It’s just a building.”
“What about Evan? Or is he ‘just our son’?”
Laura drew in her breath sharply. Evan. That was the part she couldn’t bear to face. Every time she thought about what this was going to do to him, her heart felt leaden. Breaking up her marriage meant breaking up his family. He’d done nothing to deserve such a loss. He was only eight years old.
During all those years of rationalizing, calling upon every available resource to keep her marriage going, Evan had played a starring role. With a certain smugness Laura had read the magazine articles on the problems faced by children of divorce, relieved that this was one difficulty her son would never have to deal with.
The mere thought of telling him Mom and Dad were tearing his family apart made her knees weaken and her stomach cramp. Yet while in her heart she was distraught over what a divorce would do to him, in her mind she knew she couldn’t be a very good mother to her child if she was angry and unhappy.
Besides, she’d reached the point where there was simply no other choice.
“Living in a family that’s unhappy isn’t good for Evan, either,” she finally replied, grasping the back of a dining room chair for support.
“Unhappy? I wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t unhappy.”
“I was. It never worked right. I’ve felt alone for years.” Laura burst into tears. “Don’t you get it? I can’t live with you anymore!” She flipped the light switch, casting the room in light so bright it caused them both to blink.
“I don’t want this,” Roger insisted. “I’m not going to let it happen.”
“You can’t stop it. It’s already happening.”
“Laura—”
“I saw a divorce lawyer today.”
She took a deep breath. She could see the pain her words caused him. For a brief second her heart felt as if it were being crushed. But she knew she had to be strong. She had to remember her own pain. Even more, to hold on to the conviction that protecting herself from it counted, too.
“I’m sorry, Roger. I really am. But I suggest that you get yourself a lawyer, too.”
He just stared at her until she looked away, no longer able to meet his eyes with her own.
Chapter Five
Laura ran her finger along the smooth edge of her coffee mug, watching the hands of the kitchen clock edge toward seven.
Her hair hung limply in her face and her shoulders were slumped. Sitting alone in the kitchen, weighed down by the silence of the house, she wondered if she would ever feel whole again. Her decision to leave the marriage that had dragged her down for so many years had been hard, but it was nothing compared to living with the aftermath. Shutting her eyes tight, she felt the roller coaster.
If only I can hold on, she told herself, I’ll get through it. One day it’ll all be over. I’ll be my old self again. I’ll be the star of an exciting new movie: Laura’s Life: Part Two.
What terrified her was that she still didn’t have the faintest idea what the plot would be.
She couldn’t
even be sure of the setting, since Roger had yet to agree to move out of the house. Glancing around the kitchen, Laura tried to imagine leaving it behind. Right now, giving up something so familiar was unimaginable. With everything else in her life shifting beneath her feet, she clung to whatever constants she could find.
As for the cast of characters, she’d been slowly working down her checklist of those who had to be told. While she’d been certain Julie and Claire would be supportive, she wasn’t as sure about her parents.
“Mom, Dad, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
When she had told them, sitting on the living-room couch in the house where she’d grown up, Laura had felt ten years old again. It was as if she were confessing to her parents that she’d been sent to the principal’s office for passing notes. Only this time, not only was she bringing herself down, her actions affected her child, as well.
The tense, somewhat confused look on her parents’ faces prompted her to lower her eyes. Quickly she replayed in her mind the speech she’d carefully planned: “Mother, Father, Roger and I are splitting up. Yes, I know it’s a big decision, but I want you to know I’ve given this a great deal of thought....”
“Oh, Mom!” Laura gasped instead, bursting into tears. “I’m getting divorced!”
She braced herself for a barrage of “I told you so’s.” At the very least, her parents were entitled to indulge in a little tearing down of Roger. Yet her mother came over and put her arms around her. She hugged her for a few moments, then smoothed back her hair, just as she’d done whenever Laura came to her after suffering a scraped knee or a slight at school.
“Honey,” her mother told her, “whatever you decide to do is right.”
Taking a sip of coffee now, Laura forced herself to confront the painful fact that things wouldn’t go nearly as smoothly with Evan. In fact, the prospect of telling her son his mom and dad were getting divorced was what had kept her awake all night, tossing and turning like a wooden ship in a storm. Of everyone concerned, an eight-year-old boy who’d done nothing to create this situation was going to suffer the most.
When she heard Roger coming upstairs from the basement where he’d begun sleeping on the foldout couch, she tensed. Simply being in the same room with him was difficult. And this morning she had something much more important to talk to him about than whose turn it was to take out the garbage. The coffee sloshing around in her stomach picked that moment to turn to acid.
“You look terrible,” Roger commented, glancing at her before he headed over to the coffeepot.
Laura wondered if she was imagining the gleeful undertone to his words. “I didn’t sleep last night.”
“Join the club.”
“Roger, we have to tell Evan.” Laura swallowed hard. “And we should tell him soon. I don’t want him finding out from someone else.”
Roger cast her a stony look. “All right,” he said slowly. “Why don’t we tell him tonight?”
‘Tonight?”
“You said we should tell him soon.” Roger’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “Tonight’s not a good time for you?”
Her stomach churned. ‘Tonight’s fine.”
Laura yearned to point out there would never be a good time to tell their son his parents were getting divorced. Instead, she picked up her coffee cup and retreated to her bedroom.
* * * *
Sitting on the edge of her bed, staring out the window at the colorless sky, Laura attempted to will away her sick feeling. She wanted so badly to make sense of it all. Over and over again she replayed scenes from her life with Roger, trying to figure out what they could have done differently.
Almost from the very start she’d recognized that something wasn’t right. Early in their first year together, when she was still insisting to herself that anytime now her new husband would tire of the “break” he was taking and get a job, she had casually opened a bank statement that came in the mail. She froze. Of course, she was aware that she’d dipped into her savings account several times since the wedding, anxious to support the freewheeling lifestyle she and Roger were quickly adapting to. Yet it wasn’t until she was forced to confront the bottom line on a page of computer printout that she understood just how badly off they were.
She found Roger in the bedroom of their small apartment. He was clipping his toenails, using the classified ads of The New York Times as a catchall.
“Roger,” she said as evenly as she could, “I just got a statement from Citibank. I must admit, I haven’t been paying very close attention to how much money we’ve been going through.”
“Yeah?” He paused, his nail clipper poised in midair, the toes on his right foot fanned out. “And?”
She took a deep breath. “My savings account is almost wiped out.”
He looked at her expectantly. “What’s your point?”
“I think you should get a job!”
Roger resumed his nail clipping, shaking his head. “I’m too busy. I’ve got too many other important things to do.”
Laura stared at him. “All I want,” she said, still trying to remain calm, “is a little bit of security. Some money coming in on a regular basis. Some savings in the bank for a rainy day. Maybe it’s even time to start tucking something away for our future.”
“If that’s what matters to you,” Roger shot back with an air of finality that sent chills down Laura’s spine, “then you’re ordinary.”
Was it that early on that he’d closed off to her? Laura wondered. She stood up, listlessly tugging at the sheets in a halfhearted attempt at making the bed. Was it at that point he’d begun criticizing everything she did? Fifteen years worth of incriminations played through her mind like a tape. She ate too much sugar. Her friends were uninteresting. Her housecleaning wasn’t up to his standards—at least his theoretical standards, since he rarely got involved in any household chores besides depositing his dirty clothes on the floor of the closet.
The criticism that hurt the most was his insistence that her skill at lovemaking simply didn’t measure up.
By the time they’d reached their six-month anniversary, Laura was already pouncing upon magazine articles like “Celebrities Speak Out: Surefire Tips That Keep the Fire Burning.” Roger had no qualms about telling her he wanted their sex life to improve. And according to him, it was always Laura, not he, who needed remedial work. Afraid that she was letting him down, she became more and more determined to live up to his expectations.
One Friday evening, as she waited for him to come home from a freelance job, she anxiously surveyed the scene she’d set. A cream-colored linen tablecloth covered the dining-room table, an attractive complement to both the pair of tall, slender candles and the bouquet of fresh spring flowers, their colors as intense as their fragrance. As for the menu, she’d carefully included all Roger’s favorites: spareribs, herbed biscuits, a bottle of wine.
Her heart was pounding as she heard his key in the lock. Roger paused in the doorway, his expression changing from haggard to surprised. “What’s this?”
“Oh, just a little something I cooked up.” Laura didn’t bother to mention that the inspiration for her romantic evening a deux was rooted in the latest issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal. “I thought we deserved a quiet evening all to ourselves.”
“Great.” Roger sat down at the table, peeking under the cloth napkin that covered the basket of rolls. After casting her an appreciative glance, he grabbed a biscuit.
By the time Laura had served the Boston cream pie, the candles were burned halfway down, the wine bottle was empty, and her bare feet were in his lap.
“Let’s go into the bedroom,” she murmured.
This time, she told herself, shuffling down the hall with her arm slung around his waist, Roger and I will connect. We’ll be closer than we’ve even been before. I know we can. I can make it happen.
Lying with him in bed, she forced herself to shut out every defense, every reservation, every thought of anything besides the here a
nd now. She even put aside her usual self-consciousness about her body. She knew Roger wished she were thinner, more graceful, more agile ... freer. Tonight she refused to worry about any of that.
Instead, she concentrated on the sensation of the taut skin on the familiar curves of his shoulders. She pressed her breasts against his chest and felt a rush of excitement when she was rewarded with a satisfied smile. Her body responded to his in a way it never had before. As he pushed inside her she moved against him hard, giving in to the longing to have him as close to her as possible.
Afterward, Laura lay with her head on his stomach, her hair splayed out on his chest. One arm was flung across his waist while with her other hand she caressed him. When she heard his breathing turn heavy and even, she, too, fell asleep.
She woke up alone. Yet she was still glowing as she followed the sounds of coffee being made and found Roger in the kitchen.
Coming up behind him, she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Hmmm,” she purred, nuzzling the back of his neck. “That was nice last night, wasn’t it?”
“Well,” he replied matter-of-factly, “it was better.”
* * * *
As she finished making the bed, Laura sank down onto it. Whatever energy she’d awoken with was already sapped.
“I was never good enough,” Laura said aloud. “No matter what I did, it was never enough.”
Tears stung her eyes. Annoyed, she wiped them. Desperate for an antidote to the ache in her heart, she switched on the radio on the night table.
Bonnie Raitt was mournfully singing “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
“Listen to that,” Laura muttered. “They’re playing our song.”
She let out what was meant to be a laugh. Instead, it came out a sob.
* * * *
There was an unreal quality to the scene that Laura found herself in that evening: three reluctant participants gathered in the kitchen, Laura and Roger sitting at the table, Evan standing in the doorway, impatient to get back to his Nintendo game. Part of her was shrieking, No! I don’t want this! I can’t do it! Yet she knew this was just one more part of the roller-coaster ride. She had to hold on. If she could only hold on ...
Once More with Feeling Page 6
