The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake (5 page)

Lizzie Prattle caught it in midair. “Goodwill?” she asked.

I nodded, turning back to the closet. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Well,” she said with a purse of her lips. “Maybe deep down you really want to go.”

My hand froze on a hanger draped with a long black velvet skirt and top I’d recently worn to a local church’s early Christmas special with Jack. I’d bought it, wondering if Jack would notice the way it slenderized my hips and gave me an elegant flare. Though I’d kept him at arm’s length the entire morning, the dress had certainly worked its magic. I felt beautiful, and Jack had barely been able to keep his eyes off me. Now the rhinestone buttons down the top’s front winked at me, toying with my memories in the dim bedroom light of the “bachelorette” pad I’d been renting for the past couple of months, ever since I’d had my fill of my husband’s cheating ways and, later, our daughter’s overbearing will to see us reunited. It was not that I blamed Olivia. After all, we are her parents, and she loves us both. We did not raise her in a home of turmoil and calamity so that she might say, “Better separate than together.” Instead, our memories are full of good times, of laughter around the dinner table as we readied ourselves for the next big high school sports game (Jack being the coach), where Jack would move beautifully across the field or the court and Olivia would stand proud in the center of the cheerleaders, kicking her legs, waving her pom-poms while I sat in the bleachers, sipping coffee and feeling content. We had memories that were good memories. Looking back on it, we—Jack and I—never really fought. But now that I know myself a bit better, I find that this was more my fault. I willingly allowed Jack to run over me in certain areas of our marriage, just as his mother had done with Jack’s father. Like I said, I sat content in the bleachers. Not happy. Not unhappy. Just content. It wasn’t until Olivia married and moved on with her life with her new family that I became sad. I was willing to continue to live as man and wife with Jack, reasoning that so many other wives out there had it worse. Besides all that, I did love Jack, and I knew that—in his own way—Jack loved me. He was a product of mimicking what his father had taught him. And now, since Jack had been in therapy, he seemed to understand that too, while I am learning things about myself and about my own role in the breakdown of our marriage and about my odd hopes of putting it back together.

I pulled the hanger holding the velvet frock from the rod, twisting around and displaying the outfit to Lizzie. “I looked right pretty in this, didn’t I?” I asked, reverting back to my Southern
“tongue.”

She smiled at me, and for a moment I noticed how “handsome” she was. Silvery-gray hair worn short and always in place. Eyes that seem to dance even when she’s sad or stressed. A face with so few wrinkles she’d have a hard time convincing anyone she’s a grandmother.
“You always do,” she answered.

I returned the hanger. “That’s not true.” I threw up my arms as though I were a rag doll, then joined Lizzie by plopping down on the bed, my back bouncing just a bit on contact. “Until I left Jack, I’d pretty much let myself go.”

Lizzie positioned herself alongside me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Goldie.”

I turned my head to look at her, then propped up on my elbows. “I’m not. Look at you. Your hair turned not gray, but silver. Your face barely has a wrinkle. You’ve had a houseful of children and your tummy is as flat as a sixteen-year-old’s.”

Lizzie laughed. “Genetics.”

I had to laugh back. “Then I should be over two-hundred pounds
and have hound dog jowls.”

“Your mother is over two-hundred pounds and has hound dog jowls?”

I cut my eyes to her, running my fingers through my recently dyed red hair. “She deep fried everything,” I said, and then the two of us laughed so hard that tears ran down our cheeks. I rolled over on my side and propped my head in the cup of my palm. “Lizzie, seriously. I can’t believe I’m going away with Jack for a weekend. A month ago I was ready to divorce the man.” My eyes widened. “And I could too. Legally and... you know... spiritually. He’s had affairs on me since not too long after we married, and that was a long, long time ago.”

“But he’s getting help now. Meeting with Pastor Kevin.”

I moaned. “I really don’t know what he thinks we’re going to accomplish in two days.”

“And two nights.” She grinned at me as though I were a virgin bride about to head off on a long-anticipated honeymoon.

“Separate bedrooms, I told him. No funny business.”

Lizzie rolled over onto her stomach and gave me her serious look. “Goldie, I worry you won’t last half a day. You’re vulnerable right now, and you and Jack have history. It’s not like a first date. You’ve been intimate for years.” Her eyes softened. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, okay?”

I held up my hand as though being sworn in before the judge. “I promise.” I sat up straight and looked her dead in the eye. “I mean it, Lizzie,” I said, then bounded off the bed. “And... you’ve got to help me find just the right clothes for keeping him at a safe distance. Nothing... sexy.”

Lizzie rolled off the bed, leaving the sateen spread a mess of waves and ripples. She strolled over to the closet, reached in, and pulled my old and worn housecoat I’d owned since the late 1980s from a hook near the door. “Why don’t you just wear this, then? And maybe we can head over to the thrift store on our lunch breaks and buy you some stained sweatpants a few sizes too big and some—”

“You are absolutely no help to me. No help at all.” I feigned disgust as I brushed past her, walking out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Lizzie followed. “Coffee?” I asked over my shoulder. “I made some coffee cake this morning, and there’s still a bit left.”

“Yum. Then I’ve got to get back home. Samuel will wonder what’s keeping me so long.”

After Lisa Leann’s shower, Lizzie and I had met for dinner, and I assumed Samuel would know we’d be out late. I said so.

Lizzie sat at the table, folding her arms and resting them against the Formica of the table. “He misses me when I’m out too late.” Her eyes scanned the room. “Do you ever get scared being here at
night all by yourself?”

“Not really. No. Sometimes I’m a little lonely, but that passes after a phone call or two.” I turned to prepare the coffee, my hands staying busy but my mind a hundred miles and a lifetime away.
Lord, where did it all go wrong?

The coffee began to brew, and I joined Lizzie at the table. “Lizzie, can I ask you a question?”

“You know you can.”

“You and Samuel... you’ve never really had any problems... I mean marital problems, have you?”

Lizzie gave her head a shake. “Not true.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” She leaned back. “You know about Michelle. Having a disabled child will put a strain on any marriage. Then, Tim
... and his little upset in college.”

“But having a child who’s deaf or one who ‘has to get married’
in college isn’t the end of the world.”

Lizzie sighed. “Oh, but it felt like it at the time.” She choked out a laugh. “When you don’t really have anyone to blame, you tend to blame each other. Whew, those were bad days.”

I raised my chin. “But you and Samuel. The way you love each other. You’ve always been like you are right now. Right?”

Lizzie stood and walked toward the coffeepot. “Don’t be silly, Goldie. After all these years of marriage; are you kidding me?” She began pouring the coffee into two mugs I’d placed there moments earlier as I pulled the coffee cake from the cake pan in the corner of the countertop. “Oh, that does look good,” she said.

“Thank you. How big a piece do you want?”

“Not very. If I eat too much this late, I’ll have trouble falling asleep.”

I chuckled. “We’re getting old.”

“Maybe you are,” she said with a wink, carrying the mugs of coffee to the table, the steam from them emitting a most delicious aroma.

I joined her with two small plates, a couple of forks, and the coffee cake. As I sliced it, I said, “So tell me. I mean, if you don’t mind being personal.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She took a sip from her mug, wrapping her slender fingers around it like a cozy. “In the early years... the really early years... Samuel was the moodiest man you’d
ever want to meet.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Like you can’t imagine.”

“I can’t imagine that,” I said, repeating her words as I slid a plate topped with coffee cake toward her. “Not Samuel. He’s the easiestgoing man I think I’ve ever been around.”

“That’s what you see.” She retrieved a fork from the tabletop and stabbed the coffee cake with it, then brought it to her mouth. “Mmm. This is good.”

I took a bite of the cake for myself. “I did pretty good, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Okay, back to you and Samuel,” I said, waving my fork at her.

She smiled. “That’s about it, Goldie. He was very moody in those days and oftentimes difficult to live with. Back then, he was working his way up to being the president of the bank. It seemed to me that was all he had on his mind. Work, work, work. We’d come home from work—both of us—and I’d want to tell him all about my day. But he just wanted to sit in front of the television with the remote and watch the news or read the paper or whatever ‘success’ book he was reading at the time.” For a moment Lizzie’s eyes held a faraway look, then she shook her head and smiled at me. “He’s a good man; don’t get me wrong. And I love him dearly. Probably more than I let him know. But, that man can infuriate me like nobody’s business.”

I rested my fork against the side of my plate and picked up the coffee mug. “But, he’s never... I mean, to your knowledge, he’s
never...”

Lizzie looked up at me sharply. “Had an affair on me? No. That much I’m certain of.”

My shoulders drooped. “And I can’t even count the number Jack has had.”

Lizzie reached across the table, touching my arm with her fingertips. “He’s getting help, Goldie.”

“I know.”

Lizzie paused for a moment, then spoke. “Goldie, tell me something. Do you still love Jack? Because if you don’t, well, then, that’s an issue unto itself. But, if you do...”

I didn’t answer at first. Oh, sure, I knew the answer. The answer haunted me every single day of my life. But it was more complicated than just yes or no. There was a huge “but” at the end of the answer that muddied the waters, as my daddy always said.

“Well?” she asked.

“It’s not as simple as a yes or no.”

“Tell me.”

I placed my coffee mug back on the table. “Lizzie, I know what everybody in this town has been saying about me. What kind of a fool woman stays with a man who runs around on her? And I honestly don’t have an answer for that one. I don’t. I could say that it was because I loved him or I hoped he would change or that I believe so strongly in my wedding vows I can’t imagine ever divorcing. I could blame it on having Olivia and not wanting to bust up her little home. Or, I could just say that I was living a comfortable enough life—nice home, good friends, didn’t have to work outside the home—or whatever. But, the fact of the matter is, I don’t know why I stayed. It certainly wasn’t because I was getting fine jewelry every time he ended one of his affairs. No matter what people might think.”

Lizzie pressed her lips together. “The patience of Job, I always figured.”

I humphed. “Job, nothing. The patience of Noah’s wife is more like it.”

Lizzie chuckled. “All right.”

“Yes, I love Jack. I wouldn’t have stayed married to him all these years if I’d merely liked the man. You know, Jack’s not
all
bad.” I peered at the ceiling for a moment, then back to my friend. “Oh, Liz. If you could have known him when we first met. Before all this started. He was so suave. So adorable. And loving toward me? Please. It was as if the man absolutely worshiped me.”

“When did it stop being that way?”

“Not even two years into the marriage. He still treated me well, and when we had Olivia he was a wonderful father to her.”

Lizzie sighed. “What I don’t understand, Goldie, is how he managed to make the rank of deacon in the church while all this was going on.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “He was in church leadership before it really got out, I think. For the longest time—until this last one, really—he kept all his women to out of town. If he hadn’t been buying me off with jewelry, I wouldn’t have known it myself.”

“What was it about the jewelry that—”

“His father did the same thing. To his mother. She warned me not too long after we’d married and... maybe that’s why I stayed. His mother had stayed, and in the end she still had her home and her family. She seemed so content, and I loved her so much I—”

“Oh, dear. The sins of the father.”

“Yep.” I took a long sip of coffee. “In answer to your question, I don’t know why the church allowed him to retain his position, but Pastor Kevin has removed him now. I think that Jack is glad of it, to be honest. It’s a discipline he has to go through, and that’ll only make him stronger. Better in the end.” I sighed. “When Jack began having an affair with Charlene Hopefield, the Spanish teacher from Summit View high school, for crying out loud, I think... I think that... deep down, Jack wanted to be caught. He thinks so too. Or at least that’s what he’s said.”

“Charlene Hopefield,” Lizzie breathed out. “I don’t know about
that woman.”

“Not to mention her age. Over twenty years difference between her and Jack.”

“She’s a flaunty one, and you know I don’t like to talk ill of anyone.”

I smiled at Lizzie. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Jack told Samuel that he ended it with Charlene right after you left.”

My eyes widened. “Oh, yeah. He knew if he wanted to get me back... and Pastor Kevin told him that he wouldn’t work with him at all if that wasn’t the first step taken.”

“Do you ever see her?”

I stood and walked toward the coffeepot on the other side of the room, bringing it back to the table with me before I answered. “Summit View, Colorado, isn’t exactly New York or Chicago. Of course I see her.” I topped off our coffee mugs. “I don’t say anything to her. Not one word. If she walks into a store, I walk out. If she’s coming down my side of the street, I cross it.”