The Wife of Reilly

by Jennifer Coburn

  The Life of Reilly Tour, as Jennifer called it, circled the gallery chronologically with photos of his life.

  “Oh look,” I sighed. “Here’s our graduation from Wharton. Wait a minute. I was in this photo. What happened to me?”

  “Photoshop. Sorry.” She continued. “Now, notice how Sophie, Chad and Daniel are strategically positioned at their stations? They’ve got two jobs. Talk up Reilly. Weed out bores.” Chad gave me a purposefully frightened smile and mouthed something I could not make out. I walked over to him to ask what he was saying.

  “I said this is sick,” he laughed. Jennifer refilled his wine glass.

  “Good God, Jennifer, what the hell are these?!” I gasped upon seeing Reilly’s face printed on white chocolate hearts. Beside the silver tray, there was a small white card with calligraphy writing.

  Have a Reilly. He’s delicious, the card invited.

  “I’m not sure about this Reilly guy. Do I still get the mug?” one of the women asked Jennifer.

  “Of course,” she replied, walking her over to a huge pyramid of mugs with Reilly’s face imprinted on them. I later found out that these were promised to the first hundred women to arrive.

  “Commemorative mugs?!” I shouted. “You’re offering commemorative mugs?!”

  “Calm down,” Jennifer whispered. “We can’t send them home empty-handed. Only one is going to get the husband. Let them have a mug at least.”

  Why wasn’t that woman sure about Reilly, anyway?

  At the very end of the exhibit stood a life-sized cutout of Reilly bent on one knee holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a ring box in the other.

  The text Won’t you be the Wife of Reilly? swept across his cardboard body like a breeze. Jennifer borrowed this technique from the folks at another agency that makes movie posters. She used an Indiana Jones font so the display had a very adventurous feel to it.

  “He’s cute,” I heard one chic looking woman say about Reilly.

  “He must be a very successful businessman if he can hire this PR machine to put together a shindig like this to find a wife,” commented a young woman in professional clothes.

  “Hear that?” Jennifer beamed with pride. “A PR machine.”

  By seven we were entertaining our fourth shift of guests and running dangerously low on hors d’oeuvres. By the looks of the growing line outside the gallery door, we’d soon run out of food and wine.

  “I can make a quick run to Dean and Delucca,” offered Daniel.

  Jennifer handed him three hundred dollar bills. “Pish posh,” Daniel scoffed. “What am I, holding a cardboard sign? Keep your spare change, sister.”

  Daniel walked out of the gallery and immediately turned back. “Houston, we have a big fucking problem,” he said.

  “Back so soon?” Sophie asked.

  “In about thirty seconds, Reilly’s going to come walking through that door.”

  “Nonsense,” I assured. “He’s in Germa — Reilly!”

  Think fast. Why are all these women here? It’s a NOW meeting? Post Vagina Monologues discussion group? Book club?

  “Hey Prudence, my plane couldn’t take off because of the weather,” Reilly said. “What the heck is —” He stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing the giant photos of himself on display. Then the mugs. He squinted to figure out if it was actually his face on the chocolate hearts. All of the expression flushed from his face when he saw a chubby brunette posing for a picture with the two-dimensional version of Reilly.

  “Reilly, let me explain,” I began.

  “I think that would be a very good idea, Prudence,” he said sternly.

  Before I could begin, one of the women shrieked, “It’s him. It’s Reilly.” You’d think he was a rock star the way these women converged on him. “Reilly, I’m Ann Marie Flannegan. I’m Irish too. I think you’re just terrific and I just know we could be very happy together.”

  Reilly stared blankly.

  “And your sister Prudence is just wonderful the way she and her friends are knocking themselves out to find you a new wife after that bitch left you,” she continued.

  He looked around at Chad. Then Daniel. Then Jennifer. And Sophie, who couldn’t help waving and sheepishly smiling.

  “Prudence, I think we’d better talk about this upstairs,” Reilly said.

  “Don’t go, Reilly!” another woman cried.

  “Yeah, stay a while. We hardly know you,” another agreed.

  When we went upstairs, Reilly sat on the couch as I explained the events of the last ten weeks. I tried to give him the bare-bones version, leaving out the torn underwear, the ring from Tiffany and, of course, the highly exaggerated rumors of his death.

  He just nodded his head and laughed.

  Good, this is good. He has a sense of humor about it.

  “Are you out of your mind, Prudence?” he shouted.

  What happened to the laughing?

  “What kind of screwed-up control freak are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “It’s not like that, Reilly. I was trying to do the right thing for you.”

  “You were trying to do right by me?”

  Yes, that’s right. Now that that’s all cleared up, let’s go downstairs and meet some women, shall we?

  “You weren’t trying to do right by me. You were trying to do right by yourself,” he shouted. “You didn’t want to feel guilty so you thought you’d replace yourself. What nerve you have. You can’t just divorce me like a normal wife, you have to be the one who decides who my new wife is too? Prudence, you are a fucking lunatic and a control freak. This is not normal behavior. Normal people don’t do this. If I want a new wife, I can find one without your help, thank you very much!”

  “I was trying to do something nice for you, Reilly. I didn’t want to just leave you high and dry. Why can’t you see this for what it is? A gift.”

  “A gift?!” he repeated several times. “You are deluded if you think you were giving me a gift. You are playing a game with my life, and you’re the only one who gets to make the moves. Hell, you’re the only one who even knows there’s a game going on!”

  Reilly paced across the floor breathing heavily. “When did this happen? I didn’t even know you were unhappy in the marriage. You told me everything was fine. Why did I have a vasectomy six months ago if you were going to leave me?!” he shot rapid fire. “How many of these parties have you had? How many women in this city have my goddamn face on a mug?”

  “This is the first,” I told him.

  “Prudence, you’ll have to forgive me for not believing a single word out of your mouth. I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, walking toward the bedroom to pack his suitcases.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To a hotel. Then to Berlin. Then I’m going to look for an apartment until we can sort out our affairs and go our separate ways.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “You don’t even want to try to work things out. You’re just walking away from our marriage like I mean nothing to you?”

  “Prudence,” Reilly shouted. “You’re in love with another man whom you agreed to marry. Am I going to walk away from you? You bet your ass I am! I’m going to run away from you as fast as I can and wash my hands of you.”

  He threw his clothes into a suitcase and started shouting again. Then he sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. Without looking at me, he asked, “Prudence, at any time from the moment we met until now did you ever really love me?”

  “Of course I did,” I said.

  “Don’t say ‘of course’ like it’s a given, okay?! It’s a valid question.” He paused. “You are certifiable, do you know that? This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” He switched gears. “Do you know how many opportunities I’ve had to have affairs, Prudence?! Do you know how many times I just did the right thing and passed on chances for a one-night stand? Lots!”

  He opened his dresser drawers and started dumping clothing into his bag. “Where are my summ
er shirts? Where the hell are my summer shirts?!”

  “Reilly, please, it’s January. You don’t need your summer shirts now.”

  “Don’t tell me what I need!” he shouted insanely. “I need my summer shirts and I need them right now, got it?!” Then I remembered that we left two boxes in the gallery office when we moved Reilly’s stuff back into the loft.

  “I think they may be downstairs in the gallery,” I said.

  “Why are my summer shirts downstairs in the gallery, Prudence?!” He paused. “I don’t even want to know what you and your friends had in mind for my summer clothes. What was next week, a beach party where you stuffed my clothes and made a Reilly dummy lounging on a lawn chair?”

  In less than a half-hour Reilly was completely packed. “Let me leave you with this one parting thought, Prudence,” he said calmly.

  “Yes?”

  “I am not the first man to walk out on you, and I certainly won’t be the last. And do you want to know why? Because you are a screwed-up, vain, shallow and pitiful excuse for a human being.” The door slammed and I was alone. “And your lips look ridiculous!” he shouted through the door.

  Chapter 19

  The loft was as still as fog after Reilly left. Until that moment, every time he left I knew he was coming back. Knowing he would never return created a sense of loneliness in our home. And to some degree in me.

  I never wanted to hurt Reilly. Perhaps he and Jennifer were right in their observation that my motives weren’t purely benevolent. Maybe my own need to control things played a role in my devising Operation Wife of Reilly. It was also true that I couldn’t bear being cast the villain who left her husband for another man. But easing Reilly’s pain was also a driving force behind my plan to find his next wife. I may be a lot of things, but lacking compassion for the dumped I am not.

  The last time I felt this alone was when Matt returned from Europe the summer after we graduated, and I realized he was never going to contact me to resume our romance. After the first three days, I figured he was visiting with his family and getting over the jet lag. After a week and a half went by, and his mother took my third phone message, I had to face the fact that I was being blown off. The worst part was never hearing the words confirming that we were through. When a guy tells you, “We’re through,” it’s like someone dropping a boulder on you. But at least you know there’s a boulder on you. When they just disappear, it’s like a slow stream of sand being poured over your head. At first you can brush it off. Then you get irritated with all the sand in your hair. Next thing you know, you’re spitting sand from your mouth and rubbing it out of your eyes. And finally, you realize you’re buried alive. Given a choice, I prefer the boulder.

  That June I was at my mother’s house getting ready to leave for Wharton’s summer term when I found myself under a blanket of Matt’s sand. I wouldn’t leave the house for fear that I would miss his call. I was afraid that if I moved forward it would be tougher to rewind and get back to the place where Matt and I were happy together.

  For my first few months at Wharton I tortured myself wondering why Matt left me. I imagined he met up with a busload of Italian reform school escapees who had sex with him from Milan to Sicily. Madame Magdalena’s gymnastics and blow job squad.

  I worried that Matt seeing Europe showed him what a provincial simpleton I was. I wondered if he fell in love in Paris and eloped with a woman named Simone, who was a gifted painter instead of someone who just goes to museums and looks at other people’s art.

  I decided that when I visited Matt in Los Angeles in February I would ask him what happened between us that summer we went our separate ways. I didn’t know if understanding why he left me would help, but at least it would put some finality on it. Or would it? Might knowing start a whole new set of problems for us? Problems were the last thing I wanted, the last thing I could afford now that Reilly was gone. Well, now that even Reilly knew he was gone. Perhaps I should leave well enough alone, I thought. I had everything I’d always wanted from him right here and now. What good could come from digging up the past?

  * * *

  For the next week, I worked extra long hours and spent more time than usual at the gym to avoid coming home at night. I visited every museum in Manhattan, and when I was done with them, I traveled to Brooklyn and New Jersey. I was counting the days until my dinner with Chad, Sophie and Jennifer when we were each required to bring a schedule of classes we wanted to take together (Jennifer’s New Year’s resolution). Jennifer is the only person I’ve ever met who actually keeps her resolutions. I once questioned whether it was contrary to her creative nature to have a list of resolutions categorized into personal, professional and physical, then divided into items A through G. It reminded me of a little old lady cutting her meat into minuscule portions. Jennifer said the only way she could muster up a single original thought was to dump the entire logical side of her brain on to a piece of paper, laminate it and keep it in her top desk drawer for daily referral. I knew for a fact that if Jennifer decided we were taking classes, improving and reinventing ourselves for the new year, there was no escaping it. We were all taking classes. Probably the ones that Jennifer chose, too.

  * * *

  Matt hadn’t called for three days, and I didn’t bother trying to get in touch with him. I was convinced that he somehow knew that I was a liar, a cheater who tried to pawn off her un-dead husband on another woman. I was sure I’d tip my hand and cry if he simply asked what was new. There was also a part of me that was starting to get very pissed off that he never brought up our first relationship. More specifically, the end of our first relationship. I could understand if he wanted to end things. We were headed to opposite coasts, after all. I could accept that. It wasn’t as though I would’ve freaked out, crank called him or boiled his pet bunny. Matt even knew two of my ex-boyfriends at U of M, and neither of them had any horror stories of my inability to accept the demise of a relationship. I’ve always prided myself on clean and amicable breakups where we’d go out for a cup of coffee or a bagel, talk about what a good run we’d had of it, but how it was time to end. He was the only one who just flat-out disappeared on me. The fact that he didn’t seem to need to explain himself simmered on my lips every time we spoke. If he thought I’d forgotten or didn’t care, he didn’t know me at all, I told myself in the privacy of my own thoughts. Or, if he knew that I cared, but chose to ignore the topic, he was a callous jerk. Perhaps that was a bit harsh. He knew he fucked up. He told me so at homecoming. And for him that was enough explanation. Enough chatter. Men didn’t need to delve into every nuance, every word said, every action taken during a relationship. He said he fucked up and that’s all that really matters now anyway. Leave well enough alone, Common Sense advised. If you really want to think about something that matters, figure out why you treated Reilly like a stock being traded on the open market, she chimed in again. Why Matt gets off with a slap on the wrist while Father gets life for the same crime? If you slammed your fists on the table and told Matt to get out of your life, would he? I hesitated on that thought. The fact that you even need to think about it is a problem, Prudence.

  * * *

  “What am I going to eat?” I asked myself that night as I stared into my cluttered kitchen cupboards. “God, it’s bedlam in here.” I removed every jar and can from the cupboards.

  Out came the crushed garlic.

  Out came the Spanish olives.

  Out came the capers.

  The pasta.

  The honey mustard.

  The creamy horseradish.

  Out came the olive oil.

  Out came the balsamic vinegar.

  Out came the penne.

  One by one, everything from my cupboards was evicted and placed on the kitchen table. When I ran out of room there, the floor became the new home for my food.

  Then I methodically arranged everything in size order, and categorized items by food type and package color. Tomato paste cans sat next to tomato soup, then tr
ansitioned to canned vegetables and vegetable-based soups.

  “Why would spaghetti be next to canned peaches instead of with other pastas?” I exasperated. “This whole kitchen needs to be reorganized.” By midnight I was sitting on the floor surrounded by food, mapping a placement chart for food, appliances and dishes. “Hey, I haven’t seen these in years,” I said of a few bottles of vitamins that were hiding in the back. Then I realized that I probably had quite a few prescription and over-the-counter drugs that had expired, and decided that after I was done with the kitchen I’d tackle the bathroom cabinets.

  By four that morning, every item had a logical place in my kitchen. It looked like a Marine captain lived in my home. Freshly dusted cans stood next to each other at attention. I opened and closed the cupboards several times to get the rush of seeing the orderly contents. I also wiped down the inside of my refrigerator and defrosted the freezer. The cleaning woman just doesn’t put this level of care into keeping my home well organized.

  “Now I can eat,” I said, proud of my accomplishment. I cooked a Lean Cuisine Chicken Carbonara and tossed a teaspoon of Parmesan cheese on top as a reward for my hard work. Midway through the meal, I could think of nothing else but what a mess my linen closet was. I tossed the rest of the dinner in the trash and opened the closet door. “Just as I thought. It looks like a hurricane hit this place,” I said to no one. The sight of the towel edges facing outward was dizzying. The way rose towels were scattered around in between steel-colored ones, instead of being grouped together, enraged me. “How did I let things get to be such a mess!” I shouted. As I threw towels and sheets and pillowcases on to the floor, I began to cry hysterically. “This place is a fucking mess, an absolute fucking mess!”

  By sunrise I was scrubbing the shower curtain rings with Reilly’s old toothbrush, sobbing uncontrollably about how my cleaning woman would have seen the mildew if she really loved me. Then I took a shower, got dressed and brought seven full garbage bags to the curb for trash pickup. Before I left for work, I called my dentist and scheduled an appointment to have my teeth laser whitened. I wanted the Botox after all, I called to tell Dr. Kaplan. Facial paralysis is highly underrated.