Ladies' Night

by Andrews, Mary Kay

  “Since now,” Wyatt said. He checked under the kitchen sink, then on the top shelf of the hall closet, to no avail. “Screw it,” he said, tossing the pants into the dryer.

  While he was waiting for his pants, Wyatt went back to the bathroom. Feeling foolish, but somehow lighthearted, he brushed his teeth, again, and flossed. Back in the bedroom, with the door closed, he checked himself out in the cloudy mirror on the back of the closet door.

  He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. His teeth were straight, he was clean-shaven. After that crack Callie had made about his baldness he’d thought about letting his hair grow out again, just to prove he had plenty, but later he’d changed his mind. Screw Callie. He worked outside in the blazing Florida sun all day, and it was just much cooler without hair. Obviously, she liked a guy with hair. Luke wore his hair deliberately shaggy, like a surfer dude, although the guy had clearly never been anywhere near a surfboard. And Wyatt had always secretly suspected Luke of being a bottle blond.

  Luke, Wyatt thought, had a body like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Big, pillowy hips, blobby butt. He was a desk jockey and looked it. But a successful desk jockey.

  Now Wyatt turned and surveyed his own body, sucking in his gut—okay, just a little. He had wide shoulders, and all those years of hard labor at the park left him with the pects and abs to prove it. He was just a shade over six feet tall.

  Callie’d always claimed his eyes were what made her start flirting with him at that bar back in Clemson, all those years ago. That and the dimples. His eyes were a mud color, he’d always thought, but he had his mother’s eyelashes, thick, black, Bambi lashes, as she called them.

  A lot of good they’d done him lately.

  What the hell. He fetched the pants, got dressed, put on his grandfather’s gold watch. For maybe the millionth time, he looked at the plain gold wedding band on the ring finger of his left hand. He’d taken it off dozens of times, put it back on again the same number of times. He couldn’t say why. Callie had replaced her wedding rings with the flashy diamond “engagement” ring Luke had bought her. Was it technically possible to be engaged while you were still married? Maybe he’d remove his own ring once the divorce was final. He only knew it wasn’t time. Yet. Probably this made him a double loser. He took a deep breath and picked up the truck keys from the dresser.

  “You goin’ to church?” Nelson asked. He’d moved to the recliner in front of the television and found the Braves game. He was dressed in an old T-shirt and a pair of faded pajama bottoms. Geezus H., Wyatt thought. Save me from ever wearing pajama bottoms.

  “Church? No. Remember, Dad? I told you. I’ve got to go to that divorce therapy session.”

  “Oh, right,” Nelson said vaguely. “And Bo’s at his mom’s?”

  “Yes,” Wyatt said patiently. “Bo is with Callie tonight. “I’ll pick him up Thursday. Remember?”

  Every night he replayed this same scene. Nelson would ask where Bo was, and Wyatt would tell him. Most of the time, his father seemed perfectly with it, lucid, same old Nelson. But in the evenings, he got … vague. Wyatt told himself his father was fine. He was still physically fit, strong as an ox. He ran the concession stand in the park, took tickets, helped out with the never-ending landscaping and maintenance. But in the past year, Nelson had begun a slow, almost indefinable slide. Sometimes, he needed help with the bank deposits. He got aggravated if there was even the slightest deviation in his carefully mapped daily routine.

  Wyatt worried. But hell, he worried about everything. Like now. He doubled back to the bedroom, hung up the dress pants and the plaid shirt. He rolled up the sleeves of the white dress shirt he’d worn to court and put on his nicest pair of shorts. And what he thought of as his dress shoes, a pair of leather flip-flops. At least he felt like some version of himself.

  * * *

  Paula Talbott-Sinclair greeted them all in the reception area. Her usually flyaway hair had been tamed and twisted into a sleek, artful chignon. She wore a long wispy yellow and green flowered dress with bell sleeves that made her look like a butterfly, bright coral lipstick, and her usual dozen or so bracelets. She wore gold gladiator-style sandals, and tonight she seemed lucid and bright-eyed. She was, Grace thought, a woman transformed. Which made Grace immediately suspicious.

  “Hello, friends,” she said, grasping the hand of each group member as they arrived at the office. She made a show of having them all sign in, inviting them to have coffee, asking them how their week had gone.

  Grace was surprised when the first person she saw was Wyatt. He’d obviously taken pains with his appearance tonight. “Hey,” she said, sidling over to him at the coffee machine. “You look nice tonight.”

  “No parrot poop, right?” He looked embarrassed. “You look nice, too. But unlike me, you always look good.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me a couple hours ago,” Grace assured him. But she was glad he’d noticed. On her last thrifting excursion, she’d found a pair of nearly new black DKNY capris at the Junior League for three dollars and a simple acid-green polished cotton wrap blouse, which set her back ninety-nine cents at the hospice shop. The blouse was sleeveless, and she thought it was flattering to the new tan she’d acquired from all that running. With the black ballet flats from Target and a wide gold bangle bracelet she’d borrowed from Rochelle, this was the nicest outfit she owned, and she’d spent less buying it than she had a tube of lipstick in her old life.

  Wyatt nodded his head in Paula’s direction. “Obviously, she found her way home last week.”

  “Look. She’s even wearing shoes. Maybe she’s got a hot date afterward,” Grace murmured.

  At the stroke of 7:00 P.M., Paula began herding them to their seats. “Please be seated,” she said, clapping her hands. Paula looked around the room, taking a silent body count. Grace prayed she would overlook the oversized totebag she’d stowed under her folding chair.

  “So,” Paula began, her voice in a slightly higher-than-normal pitch. “We’ve completed two weeks of recovery therapy. At this stage of your process, I hope you’re beginning to feel a little more comfortable in your own skin. We’ve talked a little bit about how you see yourselves, following the breakup of your marriage. And I’d like to continue that discussion this week, with having you share from your journals.”

  Paula’s cell phone was in her lap, and while she spoke, her eyes continually watched it.

  She gazed around the room. “Who haven’t we heard from?”

  Wyatt and Suzanne slumped down in their chairs, ducked their heads, hoping they wouldn’t be noticed. It was painfully clear the therapist had no memory of what had transpired in their previous session.

  “I don’t think Suzanne has shared with us yet,” Ashleigh volunteered.

  “I’ll just bet you were that kid in elementary school who always reminded the teacher she hadn’t assigned homework, just before the bell rang,” Camyrn said, giving Ashleigh the evil eye.

  Suzanne’s olive skin flushed.

  “That’s right,” Paula said. “Thank you, Ashleigh. Suzanne?”

  * * *

  Grace felt a sharp pang of sympathy for Suzanne, hunched down in her chair, eyes glued to her journal. Her face was pale, with two bright spots of pink on her cheeks, but her face was beaded with a fine sheen of perspiration.

  Suzanne was dressed in a dull, unflattering beige dress and scuffed brown leather sandals. It was as if she was wearing her own brand of camouflage, to blend into the surroundings.

  “Uh, well,” Suzanne stuttered and blinked rapidly. Grace noticed that the damp palms of her hands had begun to make the ink on Suzanne’s journal run.

  Suzanne’s voice was low.

  “Once, I was a wife,” she began, reading in a stilted monotone.

  “I was a lover, a mother, a teacher, a mentor. I had value, to others as well as myself. And then I discovered my husband’s treachery. He was cheating on me, with one of my coworkers. I didn’t confront him. I kept telling myself it might not be true
. I became obsessed with checking on him, on her, confirming my worst suspicions. I figured out where they were having their trysts. I followed him. I checked into the same cheap motel room after they’d left, and I told myself I would take some pills and kill myself, in that same bed, and it would be the perfect, poetic justice. Just another Shakespearean tragedy. But I couldn’t even do that. Even after I knew, I did nothing. I was paralyzed. He loved someone else. She was younger, prettier, cleverer, sexier. How could I compete with her? I was a failure, at everything, especially marriage. If I couldn’t keep Eric, how could I be a success at my job? How could I be a good mother to my daughter Darby? So I have stopped trying, because if I don’t try, I can’t fail. Every day I shrink a little more. Soon I’ll be invisible. Will anybody notice? Will Eric?”

  Suzanne closed her notebook, but didn’t look up.

  “Oh, wow,” Ashleigh breathed, breaking the silence. “You actually slept in the same motel room they’d just screwed in? That is all kinds of crazy.”

  “Ashleigh!” Camryn’s eyes blazed. “Will you please shut the fuck up?”

  Paula didn’t appear to have heard Ashleigh’s comment. She was staring down at her cell phone, reading something on the screen.

  Now, she looked up, realized the group was expecting some comment from their therapist.

  “That was very powerful, Suzanne,” she said, beaming, and then looking around at the others. “Any comments? Thoughts?”

  Wyatt twisted his wedding band. “I’ve been there,” he said, finally. “I couldn’t put it in words like you just did, Suzanne. But yeah, every day, when I think about it, letting some other guy just take my wife, just stepping aside and letting her leave? What a loser I am. So who could blame her for leaving me for him?”

  “You’re not a loser,” Grace said fiercely. “None of us are losers. Just because my husband didn’t value me—all the things I am? That doesn’t change who I am. But it changes who he is. Somebody who lies. Somebody who cheats.” She sat up. “My ex came to see me today. And I finally saw him for what he is.”

  “Oooh, girl,” Camryn said. “Was he begging you to take him back?”

  “No.” Grace thought about it for a moment. “He just wanted to grind his heel in my face. Punish me some more, make me feel like crap. Let me know he’ll always have power over me.”

  Suddenly, Paula stood up. “Very nice, Wyatt and Grace. Excellent work, sharing with our friends. Let’s take a little ten-minute break, and then we’ll come back and, um, I have a surprise for all of you. Also? Who haven’t we heard from yet?”

  “Me,” Wyatt said reluctantly.

  The others shot out of the room like first graders at recess. All except Suzanne, who sat demurely in her chair, ankles crossed, hands in her lap.

  Grace slid into the chair beside hers. “Suzanne? That was really wonderful, what you wrote. I think all of us saw something of ourselves in what you’ve gone through.”

  Suzanne brightened, just a little. “So, you don’t think I’m the queen of crazypants?”

  “You? Nah. That title belongs to Ashleigh,” Grace said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small pink nose pop out of the top of her tote bag. “Oh, Lord,” she breathed. “I’ve gotta go outside for a minute. So—will you come to the Sandbox tonight, after? Just for a little while? At least so we can discuss what’s up with Paula?”

  Suzanne brightened. “So, it’s not just me? There is definitely something weird about her. Weirder than usual tonight, because she’s actually acting normal! About the Sandbox, I’d come, but it’s just such a long way there and then home again.”

  “If you like, you can leave your car here and ride over there with me,” Grace offered. “I’m sure one of the others will give you a ride back afterward.”

  “Maybe,” Suzanne said. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  * * *

  “Friends,” Paula began, once their break was over, her face flushed with excitement. “I didn’t want to announce this earlier, because, well, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. But I got a message just before our break, and it appears that we are going to have a guest joining us tonight. I, for one, am incredibly honored that he’s taking time out from his very busy life to be with us.” She glanced down at her watch and, then again, at her cell phone.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m sure he’ll be along shortly. In the meantime, I’d like us to think about options.” She looked around the room. “From what you’ve told me, all of you feel you’ve been badly hurt by your spouses. Of course, since we don’t have your partners here with us, I only have your version of events that led to your breakups.”

  Camryn snorted. “We’re the ones got ordered to be here, Paula. If you want Dexter Nobles’s version of what happened, feel free to drag his ass in here.”

  “Camryn?” Paula frowned at her. “Sharing time is over. Now. All of you have spoken of your feelings of powerlessness and inferiority. Now, I’d like you to explore what options you have, going forward with your lives.”

  A man cleared his throat. All heads swung in the direction of the reception-room door. “Er, hello?”

  Paula jumped up from her chair and clapped her hands in glee. “Judge Stackpole! Your Honor, we’re so glad you could be here!”

  24

  Judge Cedric N. Stackpole Jr. was dressed in his version of business casual and Grace’s idea of what not to wear to divorce therapy. A black short-sleeved knit shirt with the top button fastened—although Grace saw the glimmer of a thick gold chain resting amidst a tuft of chest hair sticking out over the top button. Very shiny, very faux-distressed, very obviously brand-new jeans, belted and worn navel-high. Highly polished black slip-ons, no socks.

  His thinning reddish hair was slicked back with some type of hair product that he’d obviously bought in bulk in the eighties.

  He nodded curtly at the group, and cracked something similar to a smile at Paula.

  “Hello, hello,” he said briskly, his hands thrust awkwardly in his jeans pockets. “Uh, Dr. Talbott-Sinclair invited me to drop in tonight, just to see how everybody is doing. Er, uh, I hope you are all listening closely to her message. Because, uh, if more people like you all came to sessions with therapists like Dr. Talbott-Sinclair, there’d be lots less work for judges like me.” He seemed to think this was a hysterically funny line. “Right?” he asked. “Judges might not have jobs. Right?”

  Paula’s laughter trilled up and down the musical scales. “That’s right!” she said, clasping her hands. “Very intuitive, Your Honor.”

  Grace didn’t dare cut her eyes sideways to the left to see Camryn’s reaction to this. Instead, she pretended to study the journal on her lap. Through lowered eyelashes, she could see Wyatt, on her right, his arms folded across his chest, glaring directly at the judge, barely disguised hostility emanating from every pore.

  “Well,” Stackpole said, “please don’t let me interrupt. I’ll just sit here in the back of the room, and you all go on as though I weren’t here.”

  Like that’s gonna happen, Grace thought. She glanced nervously down at her tote bag, but for now it was very still.

  * * *

  Paula stood and faced the group. Her hair was neatly combed, and Grace noticed she’d reapplied her lipstick and powdered her nose during the break. And was the neckline of her dress tugged just a little lower? Showing just a hint of cleavage that hadn’t been visible before?

  “Most of you are here because in the heat of the moment or, perhaps, after some very deliberate but ill-thought-out reasoning, you decided to strike out—violently, publicly, even criminally, against your spouse. Probably, you reasoned, ‘this person has hurt me, and my only option is to strike back.’” She nodded at Grace.

  “Isn’t that right, Grace?”

  “No,” Grace heard herself say. “That isn’t what happened at all.”

  Paula gave her a patronizing smile. “We’ll come back to that.”

  “What I’m trying to say,” Paula w
ent on, “is that whether you know it or not, you had options at the time you acted out, and you have options now. Do you stay, or do you leave? Forgive? Forget? Neither?”

  “Huh.” Wyatt shook his head. “That ship has sailed, Paula.”

  “Yeah,” Camryn put in. “I already left, or rather, I kicked his butt out the door. You want me to forget? How do I erase the image of him in bed with my twenty-two-year-old daughter’s best friend? I wish I could forget it,” she said, throwing up her hands in surrender. “What’s that drug they used to give women during childbirth? Scopolamine, yeah, the twilight drug. You feel the labor pains, but after, you have no memory of the pain. You tell me how to find the equivalent of Scopolamine for what he did to me and my family.”

  Grace’s mind flashed again to the scene of Ben and J’Aimee in the darkened garage. She closed her eyes and willed the scene to disappear, the same way she had nearly every night since it had occurred.

  “That’s right,” Suzanne murmured, pressing her fingertips to her forehead.

  “I don’t have any drugs to give you,” Paula said, her face flushing. She was looking past Camryn and the others, directly at the back of the room, where Stackpole sat.

  Grace heard a little gasp at this, but then, at almost the same time, she felt the tote bag at her feet move. She dropped her journal to the floor as a cover, reached in, and scratched the warm furry head there, felt a tiny pink tongue rasp against the palm of her hand. She stole a backward glance at the judge, who was staring down at his watch, pointedly tapping the crystal. She sat back up again.

  “I can tell you, though,” Paula said, her voice rising, “that until you spend time figuring out what went wrong with your marriage, until you stop blaming yourself, your partner, the other lover, you will never move past those scenes like the one Camryn describes. Even if your marriage is irretrievably, undeniably finished now, there was a time when you had hope. You had love. Whatever your version of love is. Next session, I want you to try really hard to get past your bitterness and write down one quality, perhaps one anecdote, that might explain what drew you to your partner. What about that person made you happy?”