Barefoot Beach (6 page)

“Ugh. He deserves better,” Margo had said.

I nodded.

“After all, a war hero who gave a leg for his country. Smart, handsome, and Em says he's very charming.”

I nodded.

“And sexy.” She leaned forward into the glow of the citronella candle.

I nodded. It was that last nod that outed me. Margo pounced on it with her catty claws. Her smile lit up the darkness.

“So you
do
find him sexy.”

That launched me into a stammer. “I mean, he's attractive. I . . . uh . . . don't know about sexy. And he's married, for heaven's sake.”

“Like that eliminates him? Oh, puh-leeze.”

I knew she was thinking of Pete, who had a history Margo couldn't forgive or even forget. “Never. Scott wouldn't . . . I wouldn't . . .”

But the damage had been done. From then on, at so much as the mention of Scott's name, I could see her internal wink. She knew my secret. Which by no means did she keep, as revealed by Em saying—though only once and at the end of that summer—“I can understand why you think the colonel's attractive. There's something very masculine about him.”

So yes, with my two closest friends onto me, my reaction when the Goddards didn't show up for the ballroom class last year was mixed. I was disappointed, sure, but also relieved. Life resumed and I persuaded myself that I was happy being alone and, except for one or two regrettable exceptions, chaste.

Still, when Em, standing with me at the door of the Turquoise Café, murmured, “There is an interesting name on the registration list,” I
thought,
The Goddards are back
, and my pulse went staccato. “A Lynn Brevard,” she said, and my pulse slowed. “In her thirties. She seemed nice. I will email to you the intake notes. The rest are repeaters. Dr. Whitman also signed up for private lessons with Larissa. No other surprises.”

Thank you, Jesus,
I thought. I'd already used up my quotient of surprises for the week.

We Got Rhythm was listed last on the plastic placard that hung under the huge Hot Bods sign facing the boardwalk at Tuckahoe Beach. Carmella's Pilates, Cloud Yoga, We Got Rhythm, in strictly alphabetical order, according to my landlord, Sal Zito, and not, he swore, because he had a little sneaky for Carmella. The three small businesses rented studio space and time from Hot Bods, a full-service workout facility for the hard-core gym rats. My clients were generally older, softer, and, to my mind, wiser.

It was five of eleven when I skidded into the studio for my Zumba group. The bird-chirp chatter of the women quieted only slightly at my entrance. I was a familiar figure around Hot Bods in the summer and knew most of these students by name. Waves and a chorus of hi's greeted me.

When I announced, “I'll be teaching this session, and for those of you used to Larissa who haven't danced with me before, you'll get a sample today. I'm tough!” A few hoots punctuated the responding laughter. My class was demanding, but these gals figured that compared to the Moscow Marauder I was a cream puff. Well, not today, first day back.

I kicked off my sandals, pulled on socks, and laced up the very expensive Zumba shoes I wouldn't sully on the cobbled streets of the Tuckahoe
Mews. I switched on the sound system to play an Afro-Cuban beat and, as the women gathered around, handed out the brilliantly colored sashes hemmed with coins or woven with tiny bells that Emine had bought for her belly-dancing classes. These women had appropriated them for Zumba, thinking it was a hoot to jingle exotically while they were on the move.

When everyone was in place I turned the music up, and an exuberant Latin-accented baritone boomed, “Zumba!” followed by a wild burst of percussion from conga drums. Marimbas pulsed, the guiro rasped, a trumpet blared, and in front of me two rows of smiling women—soon they'd be gritting their teeth, I promised myself—launched into a frenzied salsa.

I shouted against the irresistible beat, “Let's get those heart rates climbing. Now, isn't this a fun way to burn a thousand calories? Hands up, who thinks this is better than sex?”

As if I had a clue.

The rumble of laughter faded as they had to conserve their breath. After the salsa, a merengue followed. Then a cumbia, and a mambo with soul. My energy seemed to be contagious. “Bring it on,” one of the more zaftig women shouted. And I did. My pride was at stake.

“Keep hydrated,” I shouted over the music. A few dancers broke from the pack and boogied over to the cubbies to grab their water bottles and swig as they jogged in place. “Don't stop moving. Never stop moving.” Which was my personal credo, and God knows, there had been times over the last eight years when it was the only incentive that prodded me out of bed in the morning.

“Eyes on me, not on your feet, or you'll trip over them.”

There was a flurry at the door and all heads turned as Margo Manolis breezed through, only half an hour late for a forty-five-minute class. My dear friend, who'd been a drama major at New York University and had polished her skills at Manhattan's New School theater arts program,
knew how to make an entrance. She stuffed her Gucci gym bag into one of the cubbies and slipped into her spot front and center. Even late, even if she had to crowd the previous occupants, she claimed her place. You didn't mess with Margo over territory.

She sent me a shrug, her version of an apology, and followed that by knocking herself out for the final fifteen minutes. Last off the floor after the cooldown, she strolled over, snatched up her tote, and fell into step with me.

“What the hell was that all about?” she demanded. “You teaching Russian army Zumba?”

“The Larissa special,” I agreed. My heart was still beating hard. I relished the rhythm and the power surge I hadn't felt for a while. “They're used to being pushed. They loved it.” I gave her a measuring glance. She swiped her blond bangs, wet with perspiration. Her cheeks were flushed. “Too much for you?” I taunted.

“You can be such a bitch,” she growled. But fondly. “Actually, it was great. You know I love a challenge.” She paused and the next voice I heard had deepened to a sonorous Lady Macbeth tone. “But there are challenges, and then there are
challenges
.” Her Botoxed brow tried, but failed, to wrinkle. “You have time to talk now?”

She meant listen, but that was okay too. My brain was warning my mouth into temporary silence about Jack's morning revelation.

“Sit outside?” I asked, hoping for a boardwalk bench facing the ocean, a view with a calming effect.

She patted the Gucci gym bag on its monogram. “This is show-and-tell. X-rated. It's probably better in your office.”

It wasn't exactly
my
office. I shared it with Carmella, the Pilates princess, who could execute twenty one-legged push-ups without flinching, but couldn't manage to toss a dirty napkin in the trash or blow the crumbs from her PowerBar off the computer keyboard. Margo surveyed the disheveled room as if it were a crack house and cast a disgusted look at
the scarred orange plastic bucket chair meant for guests before gingerly lowering herself into it. She arranged the Gucci bag in her lap and began with a few token niceties. Margo's mother, the world-renowned Holocaust scholar Paulette Wirth, for all her maternal deficits, had taught little Margo manners.

“Jack in?” she asked.

“He got in late last night. Or, more precisely, early this morning.”

“Squeezing out every last minute with the crazy girlfriend? What does he see in her?”

I shrugged. “First love, I guess. It will work out. I'm not really worried about him.”

She read me like
Vogue
, saw through the smooth fabric of my pretense to the places where the stitches were unraveling. “Bullshit, Norrie. You've been worried about Jack since the day he was born.”

“Before that,” I admitted.

“I still think I made the right decision not to have kids of my own,” Margo said. Another choice driven by her bizarre childhood. “Pete's two were enough for me. Every other weekend and a month in the summer was just the right dose. And now they're all grown-up and moved on.” She fidgeted with her wedding ring, a thick band of platinum paved in diamonds. “Maybe that's what's triggered this. The kids are out and now Pete thinks it's his time.”

After twenty-five years of dealing with an actress, I knew a cue when I heard one. “For what? What's going on?”

Her eyes filled with tears. No one did tragedy better than Margo. Or farce. Now she sniffed, swallowed hard, and said in a tremulous voice, “Pete's having an affair.”

I'd learned that you waited a beat before responding to any of her major pronouncements. You didn't want to step on her lines. And a good thing, too, because she shifted a warning gaze to me. “I know what you're going to say. That I've had these suspicions before and they only panned
out that one time, and the past is past. ‘It's been eighteen years since Alicia, so move on, Margo.' Well, I did. But you can't erase history.”

There had been precedent in the then Yankee player's affair with a stunning New York City TV sports reporter, a liaison that almost destroyed the Manolis marriage. Pete's trade to the Orioles had ended that extramarital adventure, but the memory still haunted Margo.

I leaned back in my chair and said with all the sincerity I could muster, “Go on.”

“Okay. He hasn't been himself for a while. Remember I mentioned I thought it was because of him hitting the big five-oh? But it's become clear, especially here at the beach, where I can keep an eye on him all day, three days a week, that it's much more serious.”

I must have hoisted a skeptical eyebrow, because she added, nostrils flaring, “I can see it in your face. You're thinking, there she goes again, Margo the drama queen. But I've got the goods. First, he's on his cell phone almost constantly, whispering conversations, or he ducks into another room. Then, get this—Pete the Luddite is texting. The man doesn't know how to forward an email and suddenly he's tapping away with his Shrek-sized fingers on this tiny keyboard. When I asked him who taught him how to text, he told me Janet Buxbaum, the secretary at the Orioles' front office.” The O's front office was Pete's home base for some kind of public relations job that Margo couldn't exactly define.

“So you think this Buxbaum person could be the girlfriend?” I asked.

“She'd better not be. She's pushing sixty, with kinky gray hair, and she stinks from the two packs a day she smokes. I will not accept that quality of competition.” When I gave a half laugh, she said, “I'm trying to make light of this, Norrie, but it's no joke.” She paused for effect. “He bought new underwear.”

Not good. But no need to panic either. “People do occasionally purchase replacement underwear, Margo. Even happily married ones.”

“He switched from boxers to briefs.”
Uh-oh.
“I found these in the
laundry basket this morning.” She reached down into her gym bag and pulled out, dear God, what looked like . . .

“Black jockeys. So I checked his dresser drawer. Three pairs in black. Three in royal purple. What man wears royal purple briefs unless he thinks he's got the king in his pants? And quite honestly, lately, it's been just the oppo—”

My hand flew up in deflection, signaling TMI, then waved at her to get that underwear out of my sight.

In the East Village apartment Margo and I had shared in grad school, we'd talked about our dates in snorting, graphic detail. But when Lon and Pete came along, we stopped discussing the intimate particulars because in both cases we knew almost immediately that these men were for keeps and that kind of gossip seemed like a betrayal.

“Black and purple,” I said. “Ravens' colors. Pete's a gung ho Ravens fan. And they had a great season. Maybe he's just celebrating.”

“He's celebrating all right, but not with me. With her.”

“Wait. Who's her?”

“I'm thinking some young thing, big boobs, a fan whose father probably collected Pete's baseball cards. Don't know her name yet, but I'll find out. I have my ways. All I can tell you for sure is Pete the Cheat is at it again. He's exhibiting the same symptoms as the first time. Almost. The texting is new.”

“And when you asked him about the texting, the phone calls, he said what?”

She flicked me a look that let me know I was the village idiot. “Oh, please. I haven't asked him.”

“Well, this may seem simple and therefore inconsistent with your script, but if you think something's going on, why not?”

“Because he'd be furious that I was going through his things the way I did in New York. And he'd deny it like he did before with that Alicia
creature. Said I was insecure. I was imagining things. Like the charges for a St. Regis suite on our Visa card were a mirage. If I hadn't confronted him with that, he never would have come clean. I take care of all the bills now. Nothing so far, but they probably do it at her place.”

“Pete adores you. I can't imagine after all the counseling—”

“You know what Peter Manolis adores? He adores being adored. Do you remember the Yankee Hanky-Pankies? That's what he called the women who mailed him their thongs. And what about the groupies who followed him from game to game, even out of town? He laughed about all that drooling over him, but the truth is, he reveled in it.”

She dropped her head to her chest as if some master puppeteer had let go of the string. Then, after a whimper, she raised it slowly to tell me, “Look, I'm his wife. I love him. God knows, I wish I loved him less. But I know too much to
adore
him. I see his dribble on the pillow. I get boomed awake when he's forgotten to take his Gas-X. And men like Pete, the stars, they become raptors, with the fans feeding their egos. When the adoration runs out, they crave it. And now, after a famine longer than in the Bible, he's got fresh meat. What's tastier than that?”

A genuine look of pain swept across her face. Under the Botox, the collagen fillers, the plumped-up, pulled-tight skin, she looked stripped down to herself. And scared. She said in a whisper, “The thing is, even after all these years and what we've been through, I don't want to lose him.”

I stretched my arm across the desk to squeeze her hand. She leaned in to meet me halfway, surveyed Carmella's chaotic landscape, and thought better of it. She checked her watch. “I've got to get home. The caterers are coming for a final consult. Pete wants to change the menu. Add more fish and veggies. And that's another thing; he's switched from steak to fish. He used to hate fish. But these days everything has to have omega-3 fatty oils. He's getting himself in shape for her.”

She pulled a tissue from a box half buried on my desk and dabbed her eyes.

“Oh, Margo,” I said. “Sweetie. This is all still speculation. Very premature. Don't do this to yourself.” Which was all she really needed from me, a little sympathy.