Ladies' Night

by Andrews, Mary Kay

  “It’s really not that big a deal,” Ashleigh protested. “Nothing like what you guys did. I mean, it’s a paint job, okay? The whole thing got blown way out of proportion.”

  “Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us everything that happened?” Grace asked. “After all, you heard what happened with us.”

  Ashleigh pulled her compact from her satchel, checked her makeup, fixed her lipstick, and flipped her hair behind her shoulders.

  “So … you already know who my husband is. Boyce Hartounian. We met when I was working as an insurance billing clerk in his office.” She looked over at Rochelle. “Boyce is one of the top plastic surgeons in Florida. He is the man for boobs, in case you’re ever interested. And, of course, he was married at the time, but honestly, Beverly, that cow, was totally a joke. So that happened.”

  “Wait,” Grace interrupted. “What happened? Did we miss something?”

  “They split up,” Ashleigh said. “She hired this weasel of an investigator, and there were some unfortunate photographs, and what with that, well, Beverly did very, very well for herself in the settlement.”

  Suzanne interrupted. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go.” She opened her pocketbook and placed a five-dollar bill on the table. “Will this be enough?”

  “More than enough,” Grace assured her. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

  “I really can’t,” Suzanne said, looking flustered. “My daughter, Darby, still isn’t used to the idea of her father being gone. She gets anxious if she’s alone at night.”

  “How old is she?” Camryn asked.

  “She’ll be eighteen in October,” Suzanne said. “A senior this fall. This split-up has been very hard on her.”

  She looked around the table. “Good night, everybody. Thanks for including me.”

  Camryn watched Suzanne leave the bar. She turned to Grace. “There’s something very odd about that woman. Afraid to leave an eighteen-year-old at home alone? And she still hasn’t told us a thing about herself.”

  “I think she’s probably just very shy,” Grace said. “An introvert.”

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I am dying to know what she did to her ex,” Ashleigh said. “It’s those quiet ones who always surprise you with something outrageous.”

  “Speaking of outrageous,” Camryn said pointedly.

  “Okay, sooooo. Boyce and I have been married, what, four years now? And it was amazing.”

  “And then?” Grace asked.

  “My biggest mistake was quitting my job. Boyce told me he didn’t want me working so hard.” She shook her head ruefully. “I never even saw it coming.”

  “Hello?” A man’s voice bellowed. “Rochelle? Where the hell are you?”

  Their heads swiveled. A grizzled, shirtless old man wearing baggy shorts that hung below his kneecaps stood at the bar, banging the wooden surface with his glass.

  “Pipe down, Milo,” Rochelle hollered back. She stood. “Hang on. I want to hear this. I’ll be right back.”

  Rochelle scurried behind the bar, scolding her regular as she drew him a beer.

  “Your mom seems nice,” Ashleigh told Grace. “Did you say you’re living together? Where?”

  Grace pointed her index finger upward.

  “Here? You live above a bar?”

  “I grew up here,” Grace told her. “There’s an apartment upstairs, two bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen. It’s not fancy, but I guess you get used to it. At least it’s close to the beach.”

  “I’m back,” Rochelle slid back onto her chair. “You were saying?”

  “Long story short, Boyce wanted me out of the office because he was having a fling with this slutty little drug rep named Suchita.” Ashleigh laughed bitterly. “He even took her to the same suite at the Ritz where he used to take me, back when he was married to Beverly.”

  “That’s just plain tacky,” Rochelle said. “But how’d you find out?”

  Ashleigh flipped her hair over her shoulder. “One of the girls in the office spilled the beans that he was getting friendly with the Juvenesse rep. I knew it was this Suchita chick right away. I parked across the street from his office and followed them to the Ritz.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “That was our place! Afterwards, I followed her back to her house, and when I saw the neighborhood she was living in, I knew it was true. No drug rep can afford to live in Newtown. So I decided to fix her little red wagon. Teach her a lesson.”

  “There was a Home Depot a couple miles away,” Ashleigh continued. “I went home and changed into my guerrilla warfare outfit: black T-shirt, black Theory slacks, black Tory Burch flats. Then I went back after midnight. I painted HE’S MARRIED in these big, scary red letters all across the front of her house. Oh yeah, and on the front of her Beemer.”

  “You wore Tory Burch on a covert mission?” Camryn looked offended.

  “They were last season, and I’d worn them to death,” Ashleigh said. “So that’s it. See?” She glanced around the table. “The whole thing just got blown way out of proportion.”

  “I’ll bet,” Rochelle said, helping herself to a sip of Grace’s pinot.

  “I know, right?’ She turned to Grace. “Apparently in this state it’s considered some kind of capital offense or something if you paint all over your husband’s mistress’s house. And then there was some crap about defacing private property … I let my lawyer deal with all that. I paid some fine. But then!” She paused for effect. “Stackpole found out. And he literally blew his stack!”

  “And that’s how you ended up at Ladies’ Night,” Rochelle said. She picked up Ashleigh’s empty glass. “Anybody ready for another?”

  Camryn frowned. “Better not. The station put me on ‘probation’ after they found out about the YouTube video. My lawyer says the only reason they didn’t fire me is because I’m a community institution. I’m not but forty-two. And they act like I’m friggin’ Betty White or something. Plus, I have 26,345 Facebook fans.”

  “You’re only forty-two?” Ashleigh leaned way across the table to study Camryn’s face. “Have you ever thought of Botox?” She traced a finger over Camryn’s forehead, and down to her upper lip. “Because I could totally hook you up. Boyce showed me how to inject myself. It’s really easy-peasy.”

  Camryn drew back. “Uh, thanks just the same. I don’t think I’m up for any DIY Botox sessions at this time.”

  Ashleigh sighed and looked at her watch. “Guess I’d better get on home, too.” She fumbled around in her billfold, finally finding a twenty-dollar bill, which she laid on the tabletop. “Thanks, ladies. It’s been fun.”

  * * *

  Grace hung around downstairs, long enough to help count out the cash register, wash the last of the dirty glasses and dishes, and turn off the neon WE’RE OPEN sign on the front door.

  “That’s a fascinating group of women you’ve got going there,” Rochelle said, as she trudged up the stairs to the apartment.

  “I don’t know that I’d call them fascinating,” Grace said, three steps ahead. “Bat-shit crazy is more the word that comes to my mind. I was a little worried about Ashleigh. She was slamming those margaritas pretty seriously.”

  “No worries,” Rochelle said. “They were actually fakearitas. I just barely passed the tequila bottle over ’em.”

  “Good thinking,” Grace said. “And I will admit it’s just a little bit comforting to put things in perspective and find out there are people who’ve done worse things than me.”

  “Yeah…” Rochelle agreed. “I might need you to show me how to look at that YouTube video that Camryn was talking about. You know,” she added hastily, “just to help you put things in perspective.”

  “I keep thinking about Paula, the therapist,” Grace said, when they got up to the living room. “She was really zonked. I don’t feel so good about leaving her all alone like that.”

  “What else could you do?”

  “I could have made sure she got home okay,” G
race said finally. She turned around and headed for the door.

  “You’re going back to check on her?” Rochelle asked.

  “Yup.”

  16

  The strip shopping center looked even gloomier after midnight. Empty beer bottles and discarded fast-food wrappers littered the asphalt pavement. Blue lights flickered from behind the tattoo parlor storefront, and she could see a burly, bare-chested man inside, reading something on a computer screen. There were only three vehicles left in the parking lot, and neither of them was the shiny yellow VW. But one was a pickup truck.

  Grace pulled along beside it and rolled her window down. “I thought you had to get home to your little boy.”

  “I did,” Wyatt said. “He’s asleep. My dad’s there, so it’s cool.”

  “You came back to check on her too, right?”

  Wyatt Keeler got out of the truck and walked over. “Paula’s gone,” he said sheepishly. “I looked in the windows of the office, and I could see the sofa, so she’s definitely not there. I checked around back, too, just to make sure her car wasn’t there.”

  Grace let out a long breath. “That’s a relief.”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said. He thumped the roof of her car. “Guess I’ll head back home. See ya.”

  Grace didn’t start her car just then. “You’re not such a bad guy after all, are you?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Who said I was?”

  “I was in the courtroom the day your ex’s lawyer showed that video, remember? You put a fist through that guy’s car window. It looked pretty scary from where I was sitting.”

  He sighed. “If I had it to do over again, I’d have turned around and walked away. Next time I will. What if I told you my side of the story?”

  “What? Here?” Grace looked at the clock on her dashboard and considered. “Can we go someplace else? This place gives me the creeps. Gus’s is just down the road.”

  She followed him in her own car to a brightly lit doughnut shop a few miles away. Seated at the counter, just a few stools away from a couple of goth-looking teenagers, Wyatt ordered coffee and two apple crullers while Grace ordered an iced tea—and a chocolate-iced cake doughnut.

  He looked surprised.

  “I usually don’t eat a lot of sweets, she explained. “But I’ve been losing weight, since, you know, and anyway, their chocolate doughnuts are the best. Ever.”

  “You know this place?” He looked around. The dull green linoleum floor tiles were chipped and cracked, the red leather booths were held together with duct tape, and the white tiled walls were lined with yellowing framed newspaper clippings and faded family photos.

  “Yeah, we used to come to Gus’s all the time when I was a kid,” Grace said. “It was a big treat.”

  “So, you really grew up here? Living above the Sandbox?”

  She nodded. “How about you?”

  “Sarasota. Kinda like you. We didn’t exactly live above the company store, but we did have a house right around the corner from Jungle Jerry’s.”

  “Right,” Grace said. “I almost forgot.”

  The waitress brought their food, and Wyatt took a huge bite of his cruller. “Sorry,” he said, in between chews. “I missed dinner tonight. I’m starved.”

  He washed down the first doughnut with coffee. “You’ve lived here, always? Never moved away?”

  “I went to college at Florida State, which is where I got my interior design degree, and after college, I moved down to Miami. We moved back here a few years ago.”

  “Miami. Is that where you met your husband?”

  “Afraid so. What about you? Where did you meet … what’s her name?”

  “Callie. We met while I was in grad school at Clemson. But for some reason, I thought it was more important to get married than finish my master’s. I was working for a seed company in South Carolina, and Callie was pregnant with Bo. Jungle Jerry’s was in rough shape, and my dad really wanted to retire, and my mom was begging me to come back down here to run it. She’d been diagnosed with cancer then, but she didn’t want that to influence my decision. Anyway, we came back, Bo was born, and my mom died just a few months later.”

  “I’m sorry,” Grace said.

  “She got to hold him right after he was born, babysit him a few times, before she got really sick,” Wyatt said. “And we named him after her father, which really tickled her.”

  “How old is Bo?”

  “Six,” Wyatt said. “Just finished first grade.” He reached for his cell phone, scrolled through his photos, and held it out for her to see.

  A sturdy freckle-faced boy with soft brown bangs and his father’s dimples grinned into the camera, showing off two missing front teeth. He wore a baseball cap set back on his head and had an aluminum bat resting on his right shoulder.

  Wyatt touched the screen with his fingertip. “Kid lives and breathes baseball. He’s as crazy about it as I was at that age.”

  “Very cute,” Grace said, taking the phone to study the little boy better. “What position does he play?”

  “He’s a catcher. Like I was. I tried to get him to play shortstop, told him he didn’t want to be crawling in the dirt like I did the whole time I played ball, but he was determined to catch. He’s not bad, either, even if I am his dad. And his coach.”

  She handed his phone back.

  “So. I know you said you don’t have kids. Ever want them?”

  Her face colored, and he instantly knew he’d made a misstep.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That’s a pretty personal question. Forget I asked.”

  Grace picked at the chocolate frosting with her fingernail. “That’s okay,” she said finally. “I do want kids. Well, I did. I’d started seeing a fertility specialist…” She blushed again. “I guess it’s a good thing it never got that far.” She gave him a sideways glance. “I don’t know that I’m cut out to be a single parent.”

  “Sometimes, you don’t have a choice,” Wyatt said grimly. “I never thought I’d be a single dad, that’s for sure. But I’m not sorry we had Bo. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  She broke off a piece of the doughnut and chewed. “You asked me if I wanted to hear your side of the story. About why you busted out that car window. I would like to hear it, if it’s not too painful.”

  Wyatt held up his hand. The bruises were still a vivid greenish-black. “Pain? Me? Nah.”

  * * *

  “Callie and Luke were gaming me, for months. That day at the ball park was the last straw. I coach Bo’s T-ball team. Callie had the game schedule. I gave it to her myself. But all spring, she’d drop him off late for the games half the time, without his glove or his shoes, or even his uniform shirt. It got so I bought extras of everything and kept ’em with me. But I’d sent him home with the spares the week before. That day? They didn’t bring him until the second inning—and again, with no equipment. Poor Bo was so upset, he was in tears. Luke acted like it was nothing, just blew me off. Told me if I didn’t like it, too damn bad.”

  Wyatt flexed his right hand and winced. “You saw how I reacted. Not my finest moment.”

  He’d finished his doughnuts and his coffee. Grace broke off half her doughnut and placed it on his empty plate.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I think I just wanted a taste. To remind me of old times here. You know how that is?”

  He gobbled the doughnut. “I’ll tell you a secret. I feel the same way about Krystal’s sliders.”

  “Ick,” Grace said. “Not the same thing at all.”

  “Krystal was where my granddad would take me on Saturdays, for lunch, when I was a kid,” Wyatt said. “Just the two of us. He’d order me two sliders, and he’d eat four. Right out of the paper sack, in the front seat of his old tan Buick Regal. Every once in a while, not that often, but sometimes, if I have Bo on a Saturday, we ride through the Krystal, get ourselves a bag of sliders, take ’em out to Holmes Beach, sit on the sand, and scarf ’em down.”

 
“Sweet sentiment, but still, ick,” Grace said. “Does your ex know you do that?”

  “If she did, she’d probably sic the Department of Child Welfare on me.”

  “Not to mention Judge Stackpole,” she added.

  “You saw how he treated me,” Wyatt said, leaning back on his stool, “How did you do?”

  “Let’s put it this way,” Grace said. “Not great. Mitzi—she’s my lawyer—is trying her best, but we still can’t get his lawyer to respond to us, and I’m still essentially locked out of my business. He’s supposed to be ‘giving’ me two thousand dollars a month, but I haven’t seen a dime yet. And, oh yes, that money he’s ‘giving’ me? It’s mine anyway. All this while he transforms his new girlfriend into Grace 2.0.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Does that make me sound bitter?”

  “Kind of,” Wyatt said. “But then, I’m on a first-name basis with bitter these days. Right now, it looks like Bo’s going to be moving to Birmingham by the end of summer, and so far, there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. Yeah, technically I can see him weekends, but how do I pull that off when he’s living nine hours away? I can’t afford to buy a plane ticket every weekend, and anyway I’ve got a business to run. Or what’s left of a business.”

  “That’s really rotten,” Grace said. “I can’t believe any mother would deliberately deny a child the chance to see his father. It’s just cruel.”

  “Callie’s into cruel these days,” Wyatt said. “She’ll do anything she can to punish me. And the weird thing is, I can’t figure out what I did to make her hate me like this. She wanted out of the marriage, I let her out. She wanted the house, I gave it to her.” He shook his head and yawned.

  “Yeah,” Grace said, standing up and stretching. “It’s pretty late for me, too.”

  “Thanks for listening to me vent,” Wyatt said. He hesitated. “I got the feeling, back there at Paula’s office, all of y’all were ready to tar and feather me. Just for being a guy.”

  Grace shrugged. “Everybody in that room is there because a man dumped on her.”

  “Hey, a guy dumped on me, too,” Wyatt said. “Remember?”

  “Right.”