Keep Calm and Kill Your Wife (3 page)

Y
EAH! YES-S-S! Look at that. It’s fuckin’ beautiful,” Louie exclaimed as he reeled her in. She had to be at least a thirty pounder.

Hart whistled. “You are one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?”

“Nothing but skill, my man,” said Louie.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Hart said with a grin. “Just remember who gave you the bait.”

Louie was one of Hart’s oldest friends and they were each the best man at the other’s wedding. In some ways they were so much alike it was kind of scary. And that fact was what seemed to keep them so close for all these years.

It was also what seemed to be at the core of an underlying animosity that both seemed to hold for the other. And one which had led to numerous tooth-loosening, drag-out brawls over the years, even as adults.

Ninety-nine percent of the time they could rib each other unmercifully and simply laugh it off—genuinely get a roaring kick out of it. But if either’s mood was off just a little bit, or one went just an inch too far, it was Ali-Frazier all over again.

“Yeah, I’m sure every time I think back on this gorgeous hunk of bass, I’ll think of you and your fuckin’ dollar-fifty K-mart lure. That’s going to be the primary part of my story, uh-huh.”

Hart cracked open a beer and sat down on a fallen tree trunk. “You know, I never realized before what a fuckin’ sarcastic son of a bitch you are. It’s really an ugly side of you. Terrible, terrible.”

“You know what the ugly side of you is, Hart? The outside. I don’t know how Summer can take that mug of yours day after day.”

Louie sat down next to Hart and grabbed his own beer.

“Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said Hart as he casually stood and then purposely bent down and ripped a fart toward Louie’s face.

“Oh Jeez,” said Louie as he smiled and walked a few feet away.

Hart laughed. “There’s a beauty for your eye to behold.”

Darkness had blanketed the night sky, pocketing the sun and allowing other forms of illumination to peek out and dazzle those who took the time to delight in their brilliance. It takes a certain wisdom, or age, or attitude to appreciate such things. The moon and the stars and the fire which danced atop the twisty, sinewy logs, almost transparent in their hot red glow, played their parts magnificently that night. And they were there for the taking.

The fish was good, dissolving nicely in the stomachs of both men. In the middle of nowhere. Teeming with desolation. Hart looked at the trees and took in the quiet, interrupted only by crickets and a crackling fire. This wasn’t the city with its nosey, cacophonous hubbub of people and structure and rules. This was the woods. The antithesis of civilization. There were no rules here and people got lost here every day. And who was to blame when that happened? Not people. The woods. Disappearing out here happens all the time. And every time it does people ask,
How?
not
Who?

“I want to tell you something before I start slurring my speech,” said Louie.

Hart threw an empty can of beer into the fire. “What is it, you inarticulate bastard.”

“Danielle and I are calling it quits. She’s taking half my stuff. You want another beer?”

“Wow. Yes.”

“Huh?” said Louie.

“Yes, I would like another beer.”

“Oh.” Louie reached into the cooler and tossed Hart a beer.

“That’s a damn shame. I always thought you guys were good together.”

Louie exhaled and stared at the fire.

“But hey, that’s what these girls do,” Hart continued. “They rope you in when you’re young, suck the life out of you, take half your stuff and sit back and collect alimony. So what happened?”

“She’s cheating on me, Pal. You believe that?”

“Really.”

“Really. Let me tell you, Buddy, you don’t know how good you have it. Summer would never cheat on you.” Louie shook his head. “She’s a great girl. You really got it good. So how is Summer?”

“Summer’s Summer. She’s steady, like a clock.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah? You ever hear anyone talk about clocks and excitement in the same sentence?”

Louie smiled. “You ever hear anyone talk about drama and peace of mind in the same sentence? You got it good, trust me.”

Hart laughed and then shook his head. “Man, I gotta tell you. All these years, I’ve kind of been envious of you. You got a great job. You make a lot of money.”

“Yeah, the job’s great.
Was
great. Now I’m giving half my money to her.”

They drank in silence, Louie staring at the vastness of the night sky; Hart poking at the fire with a stick, his eyes scanning the forest.
If someone lost his way in the forest and no one was there to hear him—or her—could her death be pinned on anyone? Good question
. Hart felt nervous. He stopped drinking, suddenly feeling afraid that if he got much drunker he might ask the question aloud.

Finally, Louie put his drink down and clapped his hands together once, and smiled with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Hey, what can you do? You play the cards you’re dealt and you live with it. That’s just the way it is.”

Brandy lay naked, her toes weaving in and out of Hart’s chest hair like a child playing in the grass. “So do you think she suspects anything?”

“Ow!” yelled Hart, as Brandy’s pinkie toe clenched when it should have run through.

Laying head to toe behind her, Hart’s immediate reaction was to drag his unkempt toenails across Brandy’s back, but he made a conscious decision to restrain himself.

“Sorry,” said Brandy in a sing-songy way. Hart managed a weak smile as he caressed her leg. “Well?” she asked.

Hart shrugged. “Yeah?”

“I asked if you think she suspects anything.”

“Nah. She’s clueless.”

“Good,” said Brandy. “How about your friend Louie? You haven’t mentioned anything to him, have you?”

“No, I’ve been really careful. But hey, guess what? Louie and Danielle are calling it quits. She’s taking half his stuff.”

“No way.”

Hart raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Yep.”

Again Brandy clutched Hart’s chest hair with her toes.

“Ow! Shit, Brandy!”

Brandy laughed. “I’m sorry, Baby. I’m sorry.”

“Jeez, my chest isn’t a welcome mat. What are you laughing about?”

“I’m sorry,” Brandy said through snorts of laughter. “You’re just so cute.”

“That’s true, but why don’t we change positions anyway.” He started to shift his body.

“No, no, I’ll be good.”

“Maybe you should wear mittens on your feet,” said Hart, his body relaxing again.

“Stop it. I said I’ll be careful.”

“Fine. Like it’s
so
important to remain in this uncomfortable position.”

“Anyway.” She rolled her eyes, her amusement apparently having vanished. “What happened to Louie isn’t going to happen to you. We have to be extra careful. If we’re caught, there goes the life insurance.”

“Well, let’s get this show on the road then. When I was out there fishing, I was thinking, this is it. The woods. It’s the perfect place. No one’s around. It could be dangerous, and it’s hard to find stuff.”

Brandy’s face twisted a little as she considered it.
The woods
. “Well, first of all, we have to wait a little. I mean you just got the insurance. We don’t want any ‘accidents’ happening too soon. It’s too suspicious.”

“Okay, so we wait a little. But what do you think about the place?”

“It’s perfect. The only problem is, we’re talking about Summer. She’s afraid of her own shadow. You’re never going to get her to go camping, sleeping outside with all those bugs and furry little creatures. She’s probably afraid of your chest, for God’s sake.”

“Or your back.”

“Fuck you, Hart.”

“Wait a minute. I got it.” Hart snapped his fingers and flung his hand open. “Your grandma’s cabin. Even Summer would sleep out in the woods if she was indoors.”

“You mean Summer’s cabin,” she corrected and then nodded her head.

“Not for long.”

Not bad
. She could say one thing about Hart—he was persistent. “You know, Baby, you’re not as dumb as you look.”

She smiled and then shrieked, “Ow!” as the nail on Hart’s big toe dragged across her back.

I
T WAS ANOTHER LAZY Sunday and Hart sat at the kitchen table gnawing on a strip of bacon and reading the morning paper. He was deep in thought and hardly noticed the sniffling that was coming just to his left. He felt stifled, wishing he was somewhere else. What was Brandy doing today? he wondered.
Could I get away with taking another sick day tomorrow?
He was definitely in a rut—hating work all week long, and
thinking
about the upcoming work-week all day Sunday. Something had to change. And soon.

The sniffling got louder, finally forcing Hart to break from his thoughts. He frowned as he looked over at Summer whose shoulders were shaking ever so slightly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound quite as annoyed as he felt.

Summer reached out and took Hart’s hand. She squeezed it and on instinct, he squeezed back.

Tears coated her eyes, clinging to her lower lids before finally losing their battle with gravity, crashing onto her plate of eggs. “It’s been almost six months and I’m still not pregnant.”

Hart sighed, in his head, at the thought of this conversation. “Well hey, you said it yourself. It can take awhile.”

Summer clenched her lips together. “Yeah.” She nodded and slowly exhaled. “Yeah. I think I’m going to make an appointment for next week with my ob/gyn. Maybe she can run some tests and see if anything’s wrong.”

You mean like the fact that you’re on the pill?
Hart wondered if that little fact might show up in a test as he looked at her still-full glass of orange juice.

“No, no, wait, wait,” Hart said. “Before you do that, I wasn’t going to say anything, I wanted it to be a surprise, but I wanted to take you away for a little vacation.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think what you need—what
we
need, is just a little R and R. We just need to relax. You know that happened with my friend Chad at work. His wife just couldn’t get on the nest. He took her on vacation. Everyone got a little less tense and a month later she was pregnant.”

Summer smiled. “Well, that sounds great. Yeah. Thank you, Hart.”

“Absolutely, Honey. My pleasure. Now drink your orange juice. It’s good for you.”

“You know I think I’ll make an appointment with my doctor anyway. I mean why not?” Summer said in between sips.

“Of course, Honey. Absolutely.” Hart shrugged. “But, uh, you know, just wait until we get back. No rush. Let’s just relax and then we can take care of business. In the meantime let’s not have anything hanging over our heads, you know.”

Summer reached over to hug Hart, who reciprocated.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

“So, where are you taking me?”

“Your grandma’s cabin.”

“I don’t know, Hart. It just seems too soon. I mean you just got the life insurance.” Brandy replaced her cup of coffee and glared at him.

The restaurant was an out-of-the-way slop joint that was several towns over from where either of them lived. Located in the outskirts of where Hart occasionally made deliveries, he had seen the little eatery many times but had never stopped there before.

“It’s been six months,” said Hart.

“That’s not a long time.”

“Well what’d you want me to do? She wants to go see her doctor. Her O-P-G-Y-M.”

“It’s
O-B-G-Y-N
, jackass.”

“Yeah, well however you kids are spelling it these days, Summer wants to see him—”

“
Her,”
said Brandy, remembering a brief and uncomfortable encounter with Summer at a medical office a while back.

“Him, her, it, whatever. Will you try to look at the big picture here? If she finds out she’s on the pill, she’s gonna get suspicious. Then what?”

Brandy ran her fingers through her hair. “What do you see as the big picture, Hart?”

Hart gestured with his hands, a bit annoyed. “Getting the money. Quitting my job and not getting caught.”

“Anything else?”

“Uh, living happily ever after? A white picket fence? Clearing up my hemorrhoids? I don’t know.”

“What about being together?”

Hart’s face lost a little color. “Of course. Who do you think the white picket fence is for?”

“Anyway.” Brandy twirled her spoon around in her coffee. “Let’s get down to the details. If we do a good enough job, this whole insurance thing will be irrelevant. Now I think the woods are great. Like I’ve said, dumping a body there far off the beaten path is probably almost foolproof. People do get lost in the woods after all. And then the wolves’ll help us out and then the snow. And obviously you’ll report that she was lost in a whole different area, of course.”

Hart’s face crinkled as he nodded half-heartedly.

“What’s the matter?” Brandy asked.

“I don’t know. It just seems so, I don’t know. It’s just lacking somehow. It’s too simple.”

“Hey simple’s good. Don’t make it too complicated. That’s how people get caught.”

“I don’t know. Let’s hear the rest of it.”

“Well Hart, that’s basically it. The only thing left is how are you actually going to, you know—” Brandy looked around. “—do it.” She gestured with her eyebrows and tilted her head.

Hart tightened his lips and sat quietly.

A slightly amused, yet annoyed, grin appeared on Brandy’s face. “Wait a minute, don’t tell me, there’s not enough dramatic flair here for you.”

“Look, look, it’s not just that. What do you want me to do when I’m in the woods? Stab my own wife? Shoot her?”

“It’s called
killing
, Hart. What did you have in mind?—tickling her to death?”

“Listen, there’s a difference between beating someone to death, you know up close, and uh, cutting a rope that has a piano attached to it, let’s say.”

Brandy puffed up like a rooster, preparing to let loose.

Hart put his hands up. “It’s just an analogy. I’m just saying.”

Brandy exhaled, rubbing her thumb and forefinger along the bridge of her nose. “Hart, let’s just keep it simple. Poison her if you don’t want to get your hands dirty.”

“That’s been done to death.” Hart laughed, realizing what he just said. “Besides that kills the whole woods idea, and I don’t know how to score poison.”

“Why don’t we just tie her to a train, Snidely Whiplash? You’re not one of James Bond’s nemesises. Just keep it simple, Hart. No suspenseful hourglasses and contraptions and gizmos and dramatic flair. We’re not trying to create an exciting cliffhanger. We just want this to work.”

“Look, I’m the one actually doing this. Don’t worry, okay? I’ll come up with something. Why don’t you draw up a map of the area and your grandma’s property for me.”

Hart turned over a paper placemat for her sketch.

“Look, don’t worry,” he continued. “Creative doesn’t have to mean complicated.”