The Perils of Pauline (28 page)

“Some of them got divorces. Some stuck it out.”

She looks out the window again and we drive along in silence. “You need to take that dog of yours to the vet. I saw his, you know, poo; it has all these grainy bits in it. He has worms. Worms are easily transmitted, especially among children who don’t know how to wash their hands properly. I showed Jack and Olympia the right way while you were away.”

A few minutes after I get home, the phone rings. It’s Donald.

“Your bags turned up here this morning, after we left for the airport. The courier dropped them off with the concierge. He just brought them up.”

“Your concierge brought them up? My bags are in your apartment? Right now?”

No, this can’t be happening. Donald is now in witless possession of every x-rated love note Michael ever wrote to me. Not to mention the photo albums. I sag against the kitchen counter, heart thrashing around in my chest. If I didn’t have a heart condition before this trip, I surely do now. I can feel my brain emptying as the blood backwashes out of my head and pools in my legs. With no blood left to float thoughts around my cranium, I can’t think. So I start babbling: “But, but … I don’t understand. I called the luggage guy yesterday and told him to redirect my bags back here.”

“Obviously they made a mistake. But don’t worry, I already called the airline and they’re going to send the courier back to pick them up. So you should have your stuff in a couple of days. It’s just as well. You left a jacket and a scarf in the hall closet. I’ll stick them in one of your bags.”

Oh no. No. No, no, no, no, no. Holy suitcases packed with doom, Batgirl. What on earth will I do? I can’t tell him to keep his snout out of my bags or he will for sure wonder why, and look in both, out of curiosity. I can feel my intestines looping themselves into a noose formation, just in time for the hangman who is riding toward me at a full gallop. All I can say is a weak, “Thanks Donald.” I have a 50/50 chance that he’ll open the wrong suitcase, a 50/50 chance that I’m going to turn into a pillar of salt before the end of the day. In fact, now that my blood has stopped in its tracks, I can feel my veins crusting over already.

For the rest of the day, every time the phone rings, my intestines form another clove hitch. I have so many knots in my bowels, I’ll be lucky if one grain of the single bite of fried rice I managed to swallow at dinner makes it past the first bend. As for me, by the first light of dawn, after thrashing about under the covers in sleepless turmoil all night, I’ve officially gone beyond the bend. Robotically, I get up, shower, and dress for work. If he doesn’t call soon, I better
brace myself for a communication from his lawyer before the end of the week.

Three more days crawl by and finally Donald surfaces. His voice is unfriendly, and he only wants to talk to the kids. I can’t tell if his frosty tone is due to the cold war stance we’ve adopted since the Battle of Calgary Tower or if his curtness represents the first shot over the bow in an all out declaration of war. Before I hand the receiver over to Jack, I tell Donald that the suitcases arrived this morning. I didn’t describe how I felt as I opened the innocent bag first to find, while gasping air into my lungs for what felt like the first time in a week, the jacket and scarf neatly folded and set atop my sweaters, jeans, and brand new just-in-case silk teddy.

Hardstand: A paved or stabilized area where vehicles are parked.

—Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Valentine’s Day is coming up. I wouldn’t have noticed except that Jude decided to recreate Amsterdam’s red light district in the storefront windows complete with scarlet lamp, velvet curtains and an empty chair. Our front book table is piled high with books on erotica and all things lusty. Meanwhile, my own boudoir is darkened and dusty.

Everywhere there are lacy reminders of the day for lovers. I jerk my shopping cart past the card section at the grocery store, which is spammed thick with pink and red heart cards. No cards are coming for me this year. Tucked away in my bedside drawer is a collection of beautiful cards from Donald. Every birthday and Valentine’s Day, he always picked out the laciest, most syrupy sweet cards he could find.

Donald and I haven’t spoken in weeks. I stare at the display wondering if there are any appropriate valentine’s cards for absentee husbands? All the cards have honeyed messages. None say “You Can Be My Valentine, But Only If You Stop Being a Prick.”

I can detect a river of lacy red bile rising in my chest. Who invented the cruelty of Valentine’s Day? There’s a young woman standing beside me perusing cards. I suppress the urge to warn her off by explaining the utter futility of the whole exercise. Instead I continue
reading the verses in search of something friendly and benign. What do I want to say with my card? Why am I thinking of buying Donald a card in the first place? Because we’ve always exchanged cards? Because skipping the card feels so final?

Where’s the card featuring a bouquet of red hearts with festering stab wounds? I haven’t heard from Michael either, but that’s no surprise. He said I had to decide. How do I decide? Do I even have a choice when it comes to Donald? Ever since New Year’s we have stood but one short stomp from Splittsville. All it will take is for one or the other of us to fling the first load of divorce papers on the other’s head. Who is going to make the first move?

Bibienne calls me at work: She needs an Emergency Girl’s Night Out. “The Greek place. I need to have a look at some real men.”

John the Greek God leads us to our favorite booth, we slip into our seats, and Bibienne clasps his hand in hers and says imploringly, “Red, please. A carafe.”

“Who wants to go first?”

“I do. Bernie is such an idiot. He insisted on climbing up onto the roof yesterday to try to shovel off some of the snow and get this: he slipped and managed to fall through the skylight onto our bed. A piece of the glass punctured the waterbed so now we need a new skylight and a new bed. Him and his hippie shit 70’s waterbed. He picked it up at a garage sale. True story. I’ve been sleeping in a garage sale bed for the past 15 years. Why do I put up with his crap? At least now we can finally buy a real mattress and box spring. I ordered one of those Swedish memory foam mattresses.” Her eyes go soft and dreamy.

“I hear those are fantastic. Very expensive. I’m already jealous.”

“I know. Plus the water ruined the carpeting so we have to renovate the entire bedroom. We might as well have the roof reshingled when we replace the skylight. Yesterday, I had a few inches of snow on the roof. Today, I have to sleep in the bathtub. I can’t even afford to buy a lousy glass of wine.”

John, who has arrived to fill our glasses, almost stops pouring. “Good thing you drink good Greek wine then. No lousy.”

“That’s for sure.” Bibi grabs her glass, tilts it into her mouth and smiles at him. “You’re so pretty.”

He lays a plate of hummus dip and pita wedges on the table: “You like the dip. Is Greek. Very nice,” he murmurs while looking straight down Bibienne’s shirtfront. He smiles at the girls and Bibienne leans forward a little more to show them off before he minces away.

“Is Bernie alright?”

“He’ll be off work for a week or two. He has whiplash. We were in the ER until 3 a.m. while they ran him through a bunch of x-rays. The stupid fool. Who gets whiplash from falling off a roof? Now I have to nurse him and he expects me to give him massages. Why does all the stupid stuff have to happen to me?”

“Believe me, I know, I know.” I top up our glasses from the carafe.

“I swear if you put the divorce papers under my nose right this minute I would sign off in a flash.”

“But you and Bernie are so good together. You can’t split up. The rest of the human race is counting on you. If you guys can’t make it …”

“Are you kidding? That man drives me insane. He always dresses like he’s lost a bet. And he never listens to me. I told him to stay the hell off the roof. So what does he do? He had to go up there. He was all obsessed with the snow. He heard snow can cause roof damage. Yeah, well, now we know what really causes roof damage. Idiots.”

John comes back to drop off another basket of pita bread and take our order. Every time that man looks at me, I feel like my breasts just grew another size and tumbled out of my shirt to be worshiped by his Hellenic eyes. “I’ll have the moussaka.”

Bibienne fluffs her hair, and orders gyros in a tone of voice that suggests she’d like to get naked on a sailboat with him and suck on his toes. He turns and walks away taking his Apollonian tush with him. Bibienne lets out a sigh. “You have no idea how much I envy you. I wish Bernie would go to Calgary for a few months. Or China. For a few years.”

“You envy me? I haven’t slept a minute since the bag fiasco,” I say to Bibienne while dozing a pita wedge through a pile of hummus.

“How come?”

“My jacket coming home in the good bag doesn’t mean I’m off the hook.”

“How do you figure?”

“He still might have looked in the bad bag.”

“You think he looked in the bad bag but is pretending he only looked in the good bag? Why would he do that?”

“He might be biding his time while he figures out what to do.”

“Which might be?”

“It depends. Donald can be
laissez-faire
when he wants to be. Maybe he’s playing it cool.”

Bibi shakes her head. “
Laissez-faire
? I think you mean
savoir-faire
. And that sort of thing only happens in Paris and New York. This is New England.”

“Yeah but if he and Lindsay had an affair, he could be feeling guilty.”

“True. Did the bad bag look touched in any way?”

“Hard to tell but there might be a couple of missing photos. There were empty spots in the albums before but I think there are more now.”

“Maybe the photos fell out.”

“I might have torn up a few of the crappier shots of me.”

Which reminds me: I don’t remember seeing the wayward boob photo when I checked the albums. Donald could easily exact a decisive revenge by posting that puppy on the Internet.

“I’m so screwed.”

Bibienne reaches across the table and lays her hand on my arm. “Seriously, what’s going on with you? Have you heard anything from Michael?”

“No. We haven’t talked since Christmas. He said it’s up to me to call him. He wants me to decide. Him or Donald.”

“Have you?”

“No. I don’t think I have a choice anymore. I don’t think Donald wants me to come out to Calgary. And he doesn’t want to come home.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you ask him? What have you got to lose?”

I sigh.

“Wait,” Bibienne says reaching into her bag. “I almost forgot to give you this.” She hands me a small package wrapped in red tissue. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

I tear off the wrap to find a deck of tarot cards. Bibienne’s face is bright.

“You finished them.” I jump up to hug her. “Congratulations.”

She takes a deep breath. “I had 500 decks printed. Wish me luck.”

I sit back down. Bibienne points at the top of the deck. “Look.”

It’s the Queen of Cups. I remember how Bibienne said she was thinking of me when she drew her. She still looks like me. She’s still standing on the stone bridge holding her precious cup, trying not to spill a drop. So much water has run under her feet since the last time I saw her.

I flip through the rest of the cards, studying the images. Each card and card combination offers a million angles, interpretations, suggestions.

I pause at The Emperor. I once thought that card was Donald. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe Donald was buried in the deck that day. Maybe we both were. Suddenly I know: There are no answers here, just questions. What is feared? What is being avoided? What is true and what is an illusion? Pretty as they are, the cards are merely paper and ink. The wisdom and insight belongs to the holder of the cards.

Bibienne smiles and says, “It’s a longstanding tradition that a tarot deck should come to the owner as a gift.”

“Thanks, Bib. This is a beautiful gift.”

Bibienne taps the face of The Emperor with her fingernail. “Maybe it’s time to lay your cards on the table.”

It’s late when I get home and climb the stairs for bed. I prop Bibienne’s tarot deck inside my Tibetan Singing Bowl, which rests on my bedstand: the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. It’s singing its sad little song about ultimatums, commitments, and decisions.

I climb into bed and snap off the light. My eyes refuse to close. Decisions, decisions. What do I want? One thing is certain: I want sleep. I haven’t slept in weeks. Either I go to the doctor tomorrow, and get a prescription for sleeping pills, or I make up my mind.

My shoulder is itchy. I scratch, remembering Guru Greg. What was it he said?
Some things we can’t change. Whatever it is, better to accept it.

Accept it. I can do that. Maybe I can’t change the situation but I can change the way I respond to it.

I scratch harder, scraping my nails into the skin until it hurts. Maybe I need to do something I haven’t done for a long time. Like tell the truth.

Bibienne’s words come back to me:
What have you got to lose?

What if I lay all my cards on the table? Bibi’s right. If Donald and I have any chance at all, we have to start with honesty.

Sitting up, I grope for my phone on the nightstand. I text a message to Donald in the dark:
I have something to tell you
. I press send.

I had an affair.
My finger hovers on the key. Send.

It’s over now.
Send.

What can I add to this? That I regret that I made such a mess of things? That I didn’t think I would get in so deep? That I didn’t think at all? That I’m sorry for hurting Donald, Michael, and myself? And the kids? That I’m sorry that I’m such a fool?

I’m sorry.
Send.

I lie awake all night and check my phone for messages every ten minutes. Nothing comes back.