Should Have Known Better

by Grace Octavia

  The house was furnished in a mix of dainty Victorian antiques and country whimsy. There were pictures of women from aged black and white photos to color all over the walls in different kinds of antique frames. Some I recognized—Princess Diana and Juanita Jordan—but others looked like women who were just from around the area.

  There was a woman sitting at a desk in the foyer. She smiled at me. Introduced herself as Sarah Ferguson and asked if I could sign in. There was a spiral notebook with REGISTRY written on the cover.

  “I wanted more information,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. They’ll cover everything in the meeting,” she replied. “Just relax.” She bent over and picked up a dramatic champagne bucket with little cards in it. “And take a name tag.”

  I picked out a card and then another.

  “But these already have names on them,” I said.

  “Yeah, we don’t go by real names in the meeting. Some members are very private. Just pick whichever name you like. It won’t matter. We’re all going through the same thing.” She held the bucket out to me. “Go on.”

  I pulled out another card. Jennifer Aniston.

  “Great choice,” Sarah Ferguson said. “I love her hair.”

  I pinned the card to the pink sweatshirt I’d found in my mother’s closet.

  “Now, go on into the room and have a seat,” she said, pointing to a set of sliding wooden doors. “We’ll get started in just a few minutes.”

  At first there were just four women, including myself, in the meeting room. It was a huge space where it was clear they’d gutted out a wall dividing once-formal dining and living rooms. Fifteen or so chairs were arranged in a circle and a table with juice and cheap cookies was set up in the corner.

  We were just sprinkled around the room. It was obvious we were the new people, quiet and focusing mostly on the buzz of the ceiling fan.

  “It’s getting hot out there,” one woman said. “Much too hot for May in Atlanta.”

  We all nodded, but went back to watching the fan.

  Soon the room got noisy. Women with badges reading Elin Nordegren, Sandra Bullock, and LisaRaye laughed aloud at the punch bowl like old friends and one said, “Wait until we get started! I am so telling on you, Ms. Kathy Ambush!”

  Madonna, who was seated next to me, asked who that was and I said I didn’t know, but later the “ringleader,” whose name tag said she was Carol McCain, would explain that Kathy Ambush was Clarence Thomas’s first wife.

  “OK, you furious women, settle down,” Carol McCain said, walking into the room in a black yoga outfit similar to the one Kerry had been wearing at lunch. I saw a sign out front that said there was a weekly yoga session in the backyard. “We need to get started and I hear we have some new women today, so there’s no time for your angry chitter-chatter.”

  The women growled at her playfully and started taking their seats.

  “For those of you who are new, I’m your ringleader, which simply means I’m the group leader for this week. I’m one of three psychologists who run this Hell Hath No Fury House and we’re a nonprofit counseling support group for women who are considering or going through divorce. We provide these free group sessions three nights a week to about seventy-five women in the metropolitan area and we also do private meetings daily upon request—those will cost you.” She stopped and everyone laughed. “We like to think of HHNFH as a gathering place for stunned souls. For women who thought their marriages would last forever but were shocked and scorned and made furious by the reality that they didn’t.” People were clapping and nodding along. “Our goal is to help our furious sisters admit to their pain, accept it, and get on with the work of healing their lives. Our approach is different than most. We don’t want you to pretend what’s happening isn’t affecting you. We say, get angry. Break something. Tell people how you feel. We believe that accepting those actions is the only way you can move on. In meetings, we commonly have three rules: no names, no lies, no fake recovery. If you don’t want to tell the truth, be quiet. If you haven’t moved on, admit it.”

  Sarah Ferguson handed out an agenda. There was a review of old topics from the week before. One woman who’d slashed her husband’s tires had to go to court and she gave her update. Another woman finally agreed to let her ex-husband see their children after two years and she shared what it was like seeing him again.

  “No, Ivana, you shouldn’t have scratched his eyes out. I’m glad you didn’t,” said Vivica Fox, who was white with red hair.

  “But I want to so badly. Is there something wrong with that?” Ivana Trump looked at the ringleader.

  “No, I can’t say there’s anything wrong with thinking about it. My question concerns why you think you want to do it and what it would’ve solved had you done it,” she said.

  “It’s been two years since the divorce, but I still feel it like it was yesterday,” Ivana Trump admitted. “He took me for a ride. A real ride. Stole my money. Froze my bank account. I couldn’t feed my children and then he told the judge I wasn’t a fit mother. Thank God she could see through that. The day the divorce was final, he was laughing. And said he was happy to get rid of me and my baggage. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to wipe that smile off his face and make him hurt like I was hurting.”

  I found myself leaning in and nodding with the other women. Ivana’s story wasn’t mine, but it sounded like mine. She sounded like me.

  “The only thing I could do to get over that was to keep the kids from seeing him. I know it was wrong. He was a shitty husband, but he was good to my girls. But I just, I wanted him to hurt.”

  “But you moved on,” someone said.

  “Took me two years of being with you guys and a lot of wine, but I did, and I felt like the bigger person this weekend when we went to meet him. I was OK. But when I saw him, I still wanted him to know where I was at and how I was feeling. I didn’t really want to hurt him. I know it wouldn’t solve anything, but it was a good image. He just has such beady little eyes.”

  “Mine, too,” said Juanita Jordan.

  “Mine, too!” someone else called.

  “Well, what about the new furies?” the ringleader asked. She had all of us new women in the room introduce ourselves by saying why we were furious and how we knew we were.

  “My husband, Reginald, he wants a divorce,” I said, expecting to go on, but I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know what I wanted to say to these strangers.

  “And how do you feel about that?” the ringleader asked.

  “Angry. I feel very angry. The situation, it’s . . .” I paused and looked around the room, stopping at the woman who’d said her ex-husband stole her money. “I thought I knew him better than this. But I guess I didn’t.”

  We kept going around the room and then a few older members answered a question the ringleader had posed the week before: what are the good things you remember about yourself before you got married?

  The women opened the writing pads they had on their laps and began to read aloud, taking turns.

  “I had great hair,” Madonna said.

  “I was a dreamer,” Sarah said.

  “I could give a great massage!” Juanita said.

  “I was a good hiker. I hiked the Appalachian Trail,” Vivica said.

  “The whole thing?” someone asked.

  “The whole blasted thing!”

  “What about you, Jennifer?” Madonna asked me. “Do you remember anything good about yourself?”

  I couldn’t remember doing anything that was good. I’d gone to school and said my prayers. But those were things that were expected. I didn’t have any talents or hobbies. I hadn’t hiked a two thousand-mile trail. I was just living.

  “I was open to life,” I said after a while. “Open to where my life was going.”

  There was a collective sigh and I felt Madonna’s hand on my back.

  The ringleader shared the assignment for the next week. We had to define our power. I followed everyone else and wrot
e this short question on the writing pad I’d brought. While I thought it was vague and kind of odd, I looked at the words and thought I’d at least try to answer.

  The women skipped out of the meeting like kids heading to recess. They laughed so loud I thought maybe the punch had been spiked. It was interesting though; I was wanting to laugh with them.

  “Good first day, Jennifer,” a short black woman who’d been wearing a name tag with Kelis on it said to me as I stood outside searching for my mother’s car. She pointed to the name tag I’d accidentally left on my shirt.

  “Oh, I forgot to take this off,” I said, unpinning the card.

  “Oh, keep it. I’m sure you’ll be back.”

  “Why did you say I had a good first day?” I asked.

  “You just seem furious enough to make it. It’s the ones hiding their pain that I worry about. The quiet ones.”

  “I can’t be quiet. I tried that and I almost hurt myself.”

  “Didn’t we all,” she said, stepping off the curb to get into a car that had pulled up. “Didn’t we all.”

  I waved at Kelis as she rode away and noticed a camera crew standing in front of the building on the opposite side of the street.

  It was already dark outside, but I could see a camera with lights focused on a man holding a microphone.

  “Is that . J. Holmes down there with his fine self?” a woman asked Juanita as they walked out of the picket fence behind me.

  “I think it is,” Juanita answered, stretching her neck forward so she could get a better look. “Give me back ten years and he might be my second husband!”

  “You’d have to get past me first!”

  They laughed and walked down the street arm in arm like teen girls.

  I watched A. J. for so long I didn’t notice that my mother had pulled up right in front of me. He was like something from a movie. Past good-looking. He didn’t even look real. I thought to wave a few times, but then I figured he must have women waving at him all day and he looked really busy. And there was no way he’d remember me. Not in my mother’s pink sweatshirt. And I was sure my unibrow was back. I think I was blushing before I reminded myself that I was supposed to be angry. Or furious. And working through that. Not looking at A. J. Holmes. That’s when my mother honked the horn.

  The camera crew, A. J., me, and everyone left in the house jumped at the sound of the horn.

  “You see me right here?” my mother yelled to me, lowering her head to look at me through the passenger side window.

  “Yes, Mama,” I said, opening the door, completely embarrassed and wanting to get off of that street as quickly and quietly as possible.

  “Dawn? Is that you, Dawn?”

  It was too late.

  A. J. was walking across the street with his microphone in his hand.

  “Who’s that?” my mother asked.

  I closed the car door and turned to A. J. as he came up on the sidewalk where I was standing. I saw the faces of the women in the house pressed against the window. Some had come out to the porch.

  “Yeah. Hi. Hey. What’s going on?” I held my hand over my forehead.

  “Working,” he said, holding out his microphone.

  “Yeah, I saw that. I was going to say hello, but I figured, you know, that you wouldn’t remember me.”

  “Please. Men don’t forget beautiful women.”

  “Thank you?” I said like it was a question.

  “So what brings you down here?” He looked at the house. “Some kind of sorority house?”

  “No, it’s just a support group for women,” I said. “And what about you? Why are you working down here?” I tried to change the subject.

  “A story I’m working on about international attorneys operating without licenses in the state . . . very interesting stuff.”

  “Sounds like it.” I chuckled.

  “Yeah, I didn’t feel like coming out here so late, but it was the only time we could catch this particular attorney on camera,” he said. “But now I’m happy I did. I got to see you again.”

  Just like in the office, his kindness was effortless. Almost unbelievable. Men like him didn’t say things like that to women like me. I was a librarian. I had gray hairs. I was covering my unibrow. I could hear my mother asking who he was from inside of the car.

  “It’s nice seeing you again, too,” I said.

  “Hey, I was wondering, are you free . . . like ever? Maybe we could hang out.”

  “Hang out?” I asked, hearing my mother’s calls for attention getting louder. I bent down and looked at her in the car and said, “Mama, wait!” very harshly and stood back up to face A. J. I forgot to cover my unibrow. “I don’t hang out.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I’m married.” I couldn’t believe I was saying that, but it was the only way I knew to respond to that kind of attention from a man. And it was the truth. I was still married. Even if my husband was sleeping with A. J.’s coworker.

  He looked at my ring finger. “Guess I should’ve noticed that sooner.”

  “It’s fine. And I’m very humbled, but I’m not dating.”

  “Whoa, I asked you to hang out! Not out for a date,” he pointed out.

  “So you’re saying you didn’t mean a date?” I was so embarrassed.

  “I did, but since you’re saying no, I’ll change that motion,” he said and we laughed.

  “Look, you seem like a nice guy, but right now I’m going through some things,” I said. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this to you of all people, but maybe another time.”

  “So, get back to you?”

  “Yes.” I laughed.

  “The pretty ones are always the hardest,” he said. “Well, you know where to find me.”

  “I sure do.”

  Sharika nearly sounded like she was having an orgasm on the phone as I told her about my run-in with A. J. She moaned and groaned about how fine he was and asked if I’d taken a picture.

  “No, why would I do that? I was looking tacky enough in my mother’s sweatshirt,” I said. “And even if I wasn’t, I was so shocked that he was talking to me that I wouldn’t remember how to take the picture.” I laughed and rolled over on the couch. My mother was sitting in her chair watching the news. We had one agreement: no CNN.

  “Why are you laughing? He’s hot for you!” Sharika said.

  “Nah. He’s one of those guys.”

  “What kind of guy?”

  “Those kinds who prey on different kinds of women for attention. They only like you so you like them. So you’ll sleep with them,” I explained. “I went to college with a bunch of dudes like that.”

  “What makes you think he’s one of them?” Sharika asked.

  “He’s so attractive and successful and smart,” I said. “Come on! Why would he really try to seriously date me? He has like a million or a billion women chasing him. Special women. Exotic women. Not ‘plain Janes’ like me.”

  “Some men like that. Not any I date, but some.” Sharika laughed. “I say, just be nice to him. You never know.”

  “And what kind of man tries to talk to a married woman? He claims he didn’t see my ring, but come on!”

  “Oh no, men can always tell when a married woman is mentally available,” Sharika said. “It’s like in Madame Bovary when Rodolphe corners Emma. He knew she was married, but she wanted to give up those panties, too!”

  “I doubt he’s ever read that.”

  “He read you, though!”

  “Fine. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll probably never see him again. And while my marriage is a disaster area, it still exists. I couldn’t consider something new until I know for sure what’s going. Just the idea of something new terrifies me. I think A. J. might just be a good thing to look at and think about.”

  “Suit yourself,” Sharika said. “But don’t call me when you need your potato salad stirred. I don’t go that way!”

  “Oh, you are so gross! Why do I talk to you?”

  “Beca
use you don’t have any other friends,” Sharika quipped. “And the last one—”

  “Please don’t continue that statement,” I said, cutting her off.

  “Fine. I guess I’ll go into why I actually called you,” Sharika said. “I’ve been doing a little investigating over here. I stopped by Landon’s dealership today.”

  “For what?” I sat up on the couch.

  “A little car searching . . . and flirting. I wore my yellow stretch pants.”

  “No, you didn’t.” I covered my eyes.

  “Sure did. Walked right past Landon’s office and, whoops, I dropped my keys,” Sharika said dramatically.

  “What happened?”

  “He came out—after I dropped them the second time—and asked if I needed help. I asked if he needed help and he invited me into his office. Did you see that office, girl?”

  “Yes,” I said. “What happened next? I can’t believe you did this.”

  “He sat me down. I complained that my feet had been hurting all day from looking at cars. I pulled out my baby oil and massaged my ankles.”

  “That’s gross.”

  “Don’t knock it until you try it,” Sharika said, laughing like she was imagining that she was a character in one of the books she’d read. “Landon wasn’t grossed out. He was panting. He asked if I was free for dinner. And after I readjusted my breasts and my bra and talked about how much I loved rich white boys, I told him I’d never go out with him, because word on the street was that he was dating the sister on CNN. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked. I said it was a little birdie.”

  “Did he ever admit to having dated Sasha? Sleeping with her?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s the small fries. My yellow stretch pants get big fries. He said he did have a little friendship with her—that’s nasty-speak for an affair—but he broke it off when she refused to let him wear a condom and said she wanted a baby.”

  I nearly fell to the floor. “He said that?” I shouted. “A baby?”

  “What baby?” My mother woke up from having the television watching her sleep.

  “Nothing, Mama,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

  “He said she has fibroids and she has to have her uterus removed within a year. She’s hot for a baby daddy.”