Helen stared at Mark with a discriminating eye. Sure, he was cute and young. But damn, she thought she’d feel more fulfilled from an extramarital liaison. Instead, she felt nothing. He was a little dorky, actually, the more she looked at him.
“Sorry, gotta pick up my daughter at school,” she said, standing up and getting her clothes.
“Your daughter?” he asked, surprised.
“Yeah,” she said, pulling on her underwear. She felt very liberated standing naked in front of a guy. Granted, she’d just had sex with him, but she remembered the time when she was embarrassed to be naked in front of anyone. And her body then had been so much better! No cellulite, no stretch marks, no inches that you can pinch. God, if she could have the confidence she had now, with that bod…watch out!
“How old is she?” he asked, still surprised.
“Seven,” said Helen.
“Um, do you want to talk about this?” asked Mark. He looked worried. What did he think? that she was planning on marrying him?
“No,” she said, looking at her watch. Shoot, she wouldn’t make it to Lauren’s school on time. She’d have to call Wesley again to pick her up. “Gotta fly.”
As she drove back to her house, she thought about her virgin voyage into philandering. It wasn’t so hard. In fact, she felt fine about it. The trick would be to find someone she was really into. Maybe someone she’d already slept with. Because it didn’t count if she had slept with him before marriage—it was, like, null and void. She’d have to check out her old address book. Mark was just a warm-up. She was now ready for a good roll in the hay.
Leelee had spent the morning at the beach club with Violet and the afternoon with Charlotte at ballet class, followed by an early dinner with another mother and daughter at the Cheesecake Factory, and after picking up takeout for Brad at Terry’s and getting the girls bathed and into bed, she ran to her computer. Brad was working late, thank God, and she finally had her moment to e-mail with Jack. Her favorite part of day used to be her morning vanilla mocha latte from the Coffee Bean Tea Leaf, but now it was definitely when she was instant messaging with her old friend.
She had been angry with Jack for so many years, but he had totally come through for her when times were tough with Brad financially. She couldn’t really explain it to anyone, but Jack was the only sparkle in her life, the only thing that separated her from her situation and made her feel special, unique. It was as if the fact that Jack Porter, the gorgeous son of the next president of the United States, probably, had chosen her as his best friend and confidante gave her a validity that nothing else in her life did. And that’s why she was so protective of him and cherished the friendship. If she had Jack picking her out of the suburban mom line-up, then she was as special as she’d always thought she was. That’s what she hated about her stupid financial situation—that she was just a number. How could she have gotten herself into this? How could Brad have done this to her? How could Jack have run off with that stupid size-zero airhead Tierney Harris? Whatever. She didn’t want to think about it now. She wanted to get online and hear what was happening on the other side of the country. She was excited to see her AOL sign bopping up and down. A message!
Hi, sexy! I had to go to the Vineyard today to check on the pipes in the house, and I thought of you, kiddo. It’s freezing there now. Remember when our stupid families decided to celebrate Christmas there one year? Disaster.
Leelee remembered that. It was fun to spend Christmas with Jack. He made everything better.
I was thinking about the Vineyard also. Remember those parties on Katama Beach? Those were the days. I can still smell the bonfires and feel the sand under my feet.
She waited for his reply.
You live in California. You can have a beach party every day! I’m the one freezing my balls off.
It wasn’t the response she wanted. Leelee took a sip of the pinot noir that she had cracked open and poured into the Tiffany crystal wineglass that was a wedding present. It was cold tonight, and she was feeling romantic.
Yeah, but you don’t live here.
She debated sending that, as it could be construed in so many ways. Normally she would preface it and say, You don’t live here, and we’re not young, and I miss all our friends and the East Coast, but tonight she wanted to take her chances.
Remember that one summer…Wait, I shouldn’t bring this up.
What did that mean? She was intrigued. Would it be embarrassing?
What summer? What shouldn’t you bring up?
She waited nervously. She felt queasy. It was a long time before Jack responded.
That one summer where you and I almost hooked up. But then you booted and it was over…Ha ha—have you learned how to hold your liquor yet, Swifty?
So she hadn’t dreamt it. He knew it almost happened also. But why didn’t it happen another night? Why had she had only one chance?
I’ve learned how to control my liquor, thank you. I’ve learned a lot of things. But I’ve never quite learned why you were too pussy to make a move on me all those years ago. Surely you didn’t let a little vomit get in your way? Were you just shy?
She was going for it. They had never talked in such a serious tone in years. It was surreal.
I guess I was a pussy. Didn’t want to mess up our great friendship. I do regret it.
Wow, the great Jack Porter admitting error! She was excited.
You can fix it. No need for regrets. It’s never too late.
The cursor flashed on the screen for what seemed like an eternity. Had she gone too far? She looked at the clock on the screen as the minutes flicked by. It was three whole minutes before a message appeared.
Meet me at the Ritz in Boston the weekend after Labor Day. I just made a rez under the name Porty Swifty. I’ll book an e-ticket for you at AA. I’ll be waiting.
Leelee reread it three times before breathing. Holy moly. This was happening. Before she could fully digest the information, she heard the front door slam. Brad was home. When they went to bed, Leelee was feeling both excited and benevolent, so she pulled out her secret cache of sex toys and seduced her husband. It was the best sex they’d had in years.
After his orgasm, he rolled over. She knew he would be asleep in two minutes, so she had to make her move.
“I forgot to tell you. I need to go to Boston next month. It’s an event for Senator Porter and my parents want me to go. They’re paying.”
“Fine,” said Brad, who was half asleep.
“Thanks. It’s just for a weekend.”
“Great,” said Brad, and before she knew it, he was snoring.
It was several hours before Leelee could fall asleep.
•• 18 ••
Victoria had wanted to have another Girls’ Night Out, but scheduling around everyone’s lives proved tricky, as it was the end of the summer. Eliza and crew went to visit her family in Chicago for a week, and then Helen and Wesley were going to Hawaii next week, so there was really only one afternoon when they all could converge. Everyone met for a girls’ tea/catch-up on Tuesday at four. Victoria lived in a Spanish-style abode on Toyopa Road in the Huntington Palisades, equidistant to Helen’s and Eliza’s houses. When she married Justin she’d made a strong point of telling him she didn’t “do houses,” so the decorating of the residence was turned over to Marcus Harrington, a well-known L.A. designer with an affinity for Eastern art and furnishings. Victoria had never wanted to be one of those women who spent hours contemplating tassels and fringe and couldn’t be bothered dissecting the pros and cons of brushed nickel versus stainless steel hardware in the kitchen and bathrooms, so Marcus was given pretty much free rein to do as he pleased. The result was a very nice, sophisticated Asian-inspired home with mostly modern furnishings, little artwork on the walls, and even fewer objects that reflected the true personality of the denizens. That was fine with Victoria, who viewed homes as functional places for eating and sleeping, and little else. Her one caveat was that it be kept immaculate.
“Oh my God, where did you get these little pies? They’re delicious!” said Leelee, cutting another piece of the apple and sliding it onto her plate. On a black lacquer tray on top of the Chinese rattan coffee table, there was a meticulously arranged spread of small apple, peach, and pecan pies on red flowered plates, next to the sliced lemon and honey sticks for the tea. When Victoria invited someone over for tea, she took it seriously. But she herself would never indulge in sweets.
Victoria looked at Leelee with revulsion. “Marguerita picked them up at Urth Caffe.”
“Love!” said Leelee. She knew that Victoria was giving her that look because she thought she was fat, but she didn’t really care. Victoria was a skeleton, and although that was trendy, it was not attractive. No guy she knew ever went for that anorexic Nicole Kidman look. They liked women with knockers and curves and it was only the gay fashion designers who wanted women to look like little boys and decided to make it fashionable to be Karen Carpenter. Well, folks, news flash: Karen Carpenter died of anorexia, and Kate Moss has a drug problem, so those ’rexi broads are not paradigms.
“So, who goes first?” asked Helen, leaning back on the sleek armless sofa and taking a sip of her chamomile tea. She was psyched to dish about her young buck, but she didn’t want to monopolize.
“Well, who has something to report?” asked Victoria, glancing at all of them.
Before anyone could answer, the sounds of a vacuum came floating in from the family room.
“Ugh, excuse me,” said Victoria, standing up and marching across the stripped redwood floors of the living room and turning left into the next room to have a word with her nanny.
“This pie is good,” said Eliza, taking a bite. She didn’t like to eat in front of Victoria, who was very competitive about food, so she often sneaked a bite when she wasn’t there. Pathetic.
“I know. I could Hoover it, but Vicki would have a conniption,” said Leelee mischievously.
Victoria came striding back in, the heels of her metallic Jack Rogers shoes clicking along the way, and stood over them.
“Austin threw up in the family room, and Marguerita has to clean it up. I can’t deal with this commotion, so why don’t we all go up to my bedroom? Then I can get you that dress you want to borrow, Helen, and we can have some privacy sans noise.”
It was more of an order than a suggestion.
“Is Austin okay?” asked Eliza.
“He’ll be fine,” said Victoria, picking up the tea tray. “Does anyone want more pie, or shall I leave it and just take the tea?” She looked at Leelee when she said this.
Leelee wanted more pie but now she couldn’t be the only one to say it. Victoria could be such a bitch. She’d hate to be married to her.
“I’m done,” said Leelee.
“Good,” said Victoria, clacking her heels on the wood floors and making her way upstairs.
Victoria’s beige bedroom was capacious; one end held an austere wrought-iron bed adorned in Moroccan pillows and Afghani throws, bookended by teak side tables holding blood red reading lamps. On the other side was a sitting room with a crisp beige couch, two stuffed armchairs in a Ralph Lauren beige and red paisley fabric, and a low ebony coffee table. The ladies all plopped down on that end as the ocean breeze filtered in through the window.
Victoria went out of the room and returned a second later with her baby monitor, which she plugged in to the outlet next to the couch.
“I’m using two different monitors these days. I have them all over the house. I want to hear what Marguerita is saying to the boys. I asked her to speak only Spanish, but I’ve heard from another mother in the park that she speaks to the boys in her pidgin English!” explained Victoria. “I mean, why have a Spanish nanny if she’s not going to speak Spanish, right?”
“Maybe you need a nanny cam,” said Helen, jokingly.
“I just ordered one,” said Victoria. “Now, where were we? Why don’t you start, Helen?”
Helen put down her teacup and smiled at her friends. “So, I did the hottie from YAS. It was good, not great. I think I need someone older. We’re just at different stages of life…”
Eliza and Leelee were surprised. Helen had already done it? And she was ready for number two? But Victoria received the information clinically, in the same manner as a doctor would listen to a patient’s symptoms.
“And how do you feel?” asked Victoria.
Helen nodded. “I feel good. I feel much better, actually.”
“Okay, whoaaaaaa… we need more details, please,” said Eliza.
“Yeah, like, big dick, tiny dick?” asked Leelee.
“Medium,” said Helen. And then she conveyed in minute detail every kiss, touch, grope, as well as a full anatomical description, to her rapt audience. When she was done, she leaned back in her chair.
“Wow,” said Eliza.
“You go, girl!” said Leelee.
“You know what’s funny?” asked Helen rhetorically. “When you get married, suddenly you become this vestal virgin. It’s like people—guys, I mean—place you in the off-limits category; they don’t look at you or give you any sense that you’re a sexual being. And then when you’re a few years into your marriage, after you’ve had a kid or two, they look at you differently. It’s like you reenter the game. Is it because we are more confident? Is it because we have some sort of spiritual fulfillment that makes us whole, fulfillment that comes from marriage? I don’t know…But you can either pick up on it or not. And since we’ve made this pact, I’ve noticed it. I’ve noticed that I am a viable sexual person again and men perceive me as such. It’s exciting. It’s titillating.”
The ladies all digested what she had said. Eliza didn’t yet feel that way, although she yearned to. She wasn’t sure that any guy saw her as sexual. Leelee knew what Helen meant. It was all of a sudden going to happen with Jack, and it hadn’t been that way before, ever. Victoria knew about what Helen was saying all along, and she felt that she was always perceived that way. You just had to avoid thinking of yourself as the vestal virgin when you get married and no one else will.
“What about you guys?” asked Helen, finally.
“I’m meeting Tyler Trask on Friday, and we’ll see,” said Eliza. Her news was met by hoots and hollers and a few off-color remarks. Eliza tried to turn the conversation away from herself as quickly as possible, so she asked Leelee what her status was.
“You guys have to promise you won’t tell anyone, because we’re talking major national secret here,” said Leelee.
All of the women promised.
“Okay. I’m going to Boston to rendezvous with Jack Porter. We’ve been exchanging e-mails like every second. He’s fed up with his marriage. He has feelings for me…” Leelee’s cheeks glowed when she said this. The other women were aghast.
“This is unbelievable!” said Eliza.
“This is what you’ve always wanted!” said Helen.
It felt like high school again. That feeling when your friend, who is popular but not the most popular, somehow lands the most popular guy, who she has been in love with forever. Despite whatever reservations they all had, they were giddy with excitement. It was romantic in that teenage way. They felt young.
Finally the attention turned to Victoria. She leaned back in her seat and looked at her friends carefully.
“I had sex with Wayne Mercer last night,” she said finally. “He’s my husband’s archenemy. We did it on the kitchen floor of his house, in the bathroom, in the living room. He was magnificent. It was dirty, and raunchy. He’s a naughty boy.”
They all looked at Victoria’s smug face with astonishment.
“Wow, that’s a real jab at Justin,” said Eliza.
“Yeah,” said Victoria. “The funny part was, I made him put that movie Seersuckers on in the background, muted, of course. It’s the one that stars Tad Baxter, that loser that Justin represents. Wayne told me that he’s going to poach him from Justin.”
“You’re crazy!” said H
elen.
“No. I just want my revenge,” said Victoria.
Before anyone else could say anything, there was a loud fuzzy sound. They looked around. It was coming from the baby monitor. Victoria leaned down and adjusted it with her finger.
“Interference,” said Victoria.
“That’s one thing we don’t need,” said Leelee.
Later, when they were leaving and saying good-bye to Victoria, they noticed Anson Larrabee standing on the edge of Victoria’s lawn, holding the leash of his Corgi, Samantha, who was taking a piss.
“Hi, Anson,” the ladies all chanted in singsong voices. None of them liked this enormous buffoon, who was wearing belted green Capri pants and a pink Oxford.
“Hello, ladies,” said Anson. He gave them a strange look. None of them thought anything of it at the time. But later, they wished they had.
•• 19 ••
The pedicurist gently loofahed the heel of Anson’s foot with soapy lather, taking extra care in scraping the dead skin off the big toe, just as he had specified. It was “beauty day” for Anson and Imelda, and they were at Aggie’s getting their highlights done, followed by their fingers polished, their corns softened, and a quick neck massage to loosen those knots.
“This is the life,” said Anson in his southern drawl, keeping a careful eye on the manicurist’s emory board.
“I know. Who said maintenance has to be hard work?” asked Imelda, increasing the vibrations of her spa chair with the remote.
Imelda and Anson had been “dating” for several months now, and the relationship was beneficial to both. Imelda enjoyed going out to dinner and the movies, and Anson was a good companion. Anson, in turn, liked to be seen in the company of attractive women, and usually dated divorcées before they found their next husbands. In fact, Imelda had been introduced to Anson by her friend Rebecca, who dated him between her second and third husbands. When they split, there’d been no acrimony or tears, just fond farewells. Imelda easily slipped in where Rebecca had been, and she would be helpful in finding Anson a replacement when she left him for someone else.
The Infidelity Pact Page 13
