The Pre-Nup (7 page)

“Only one.” He maintained eye contact as she glared at him. “I know that doesn’t make anything any better, but it’s the truth. And I broke up with her this afternoon. That’s why we were at lunch, actually. I was ending it with her before you even showed up.”

“Bullshit!” (Hey, as long as she was cursing, she might as well go for broke.) “How stupid do you think I am?”

He raised his hand like a Boy Scout about to recite his oath. “Swear to God. I knew I’d made a mistake and I was trying to rectify things before—”

“Oh please. You were trying to ply her with red wine and squeeze in a quickie before you hit the golf course.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“You were out with her in public on a Saturday afternoon!”

“Ellie, I know you’re pissed and you have every right to be, but I love you. Always have, always will. What can I do to prove that to you?”

“Nothing! Your two minutes are up and you have now officially forfeited the entire contents of your closet. Get out.”

“I’ll do anything you say. You name it, I’ll do it.”

Ellie thought this over for a moment. “Okay. Turn back time and keep your putter in your pants!”

“Sweetheart—”

“You ‘sweetheart’ me again, I’m getting the rusty spoon,” she warned. “Now get out of my house.”

Michael shook his head. “Not until you hear me out. All I’m asking for is a chance to show you—”

“Fine, if you’re going to stay, then tell me why. Why would you do this to our family? What does she have that I don’t?”

He looked sad and defeated but didn’t answer so she upped the volume of her voice.
“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, then cleared his throat. “But I am deeply, truly sorry and I don’t want you and Hannah to be punished for the stupid mistake I made.”

Ellie kept seething, but let him talk.

“I’ll sleep in the guest room. I’ll let you have at me with the rusty spoon, if that’s what you need,” he vowed. “All I’m asking is that you hold off on making any huge decisions for a few weeks. Think about the future, El. Think about Hannah.”

She stared down at the floor.

He took her silence as an invitation to forge ahead. “I called a couples therapist and left a message requesting an emergency appointment first thing Monday morning. I hope you’ll go with me, but if you won’t, I’ll go alone.”

“I
hate
you,” she finally said.

“I mean it, Ellie. I will do whatever it takes. Anything. Just tell me what you want.”

She gave up trying not to cry. “I don’t want to have to make this choice.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But you’re the only one who can.”

She flung the door open wide, letting in gusts of cold, damp wind.

He nodded slowly and turned to leave. “Take as much time as you need. I’ll wait.”

“Stop making this harder than it already is. Just…” Her whole body went limp and shaky. “Go.”

He stepped outside but hunkered down on the front step and stayed there, weathering the wind and falling darkness with only a thin jacket and no further protest. Ellie closed the door and busied herself with cleaning up the kitchen. When Hannah’s movie ended, Michael was still sitting out there, silent and motionless.

“Mommy,” Hannah called from the foyer. “Daddy’s outside and he won’t come in.”

“I know, honey. Come on, it’s bath time,” Ellie called back.

Hannah was full of questions through the bath/teeth brushing/storytime routine:

“Is Daddy camping out there?”

“When is he coming inside?”

“Can I get my blankets and go camping with him?”

“No, baby.” Ellie smoothed back her daughter’s silky curls, then folded back the bubble-gum pink blankets on the canopied bed. “You have to sleep inside. You had a very busy day.”

“But why—”

Ellie gathered her close. She could feel Hannah’s quick, steady heartbeat thudding against her own. “Mommy and Daddy both love you so much. We’ll talk about this tomorrow, okay? All three of us together.”

She read and sang and rubbed Hannah’s back until, finally, the little girl drifted off to sleep. As she headed back into the hall, she forced herself to stare straight ahead and not sneak a glance toward the front door to see if Michael was still there.

Let him freeze. Let him suffer. Let him go see the therapist by himself to figure out why he’s a duplicitous, scum-sucking cheater. He’s not my problem anymore.

By midnight, she had slugged back two cups of warm milk and a glass of wine, but despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t fall asleep. She curled up in a corner of the king-size bed and listened to the wind howling down from the mountains.

Michael was still out on the doorstep. She could feel his presence permeating her house, her mind, her heart. He might as well be in bed next to her. Damn him to hell. She threw aside the comforter and stalked toward the linen closet.

“Here.” Without bothering to turn on the porch light, Ellie yanked open the front door and hurled a pillow and rolled-up sleeping bag at Michael.

“Oof.” The sleeping bag connected with his head. “Thank you. Does this mean…?”

She slammed and locked the door, stalked back to bed, and burrowed under the covers.

Hannah’s thin, high-pitched voice woke her at dawn. “Daddy’s still camping on the porch, Mommy! I’m gonna get my sleeping bag!”

Ellie rolled over in bed and squinted at the digital clock on the nightstand. Six-thirteen
A.M
. Hannah was going to freeze out there in her pink flannel pajamas.

Hopefully, Michael had already lost a few extremities to frostbite.

She wrapped the comforter around her like a cape, then padded out to the foyer and opened the door.

“Fine,” she said dully without looking down. “You can come in.”

Ellie
Chapter
7

I
’m a size
what
?” Ellie clapped her hands over her mouth as the bridal salon owner tightened a tape measure around her hips and rattled off numbers to the assistant holding a clipboard. “Are you kidding me? How could I have gone up two whole dress sizes in under a week? I mean, I grant you I’ve been a little depressed and the gym has slipped down on my priority list and I may have had a few late-night indiscretions with both Ben and Jerry, but two sizes in a week?”

“Chill.” Mara glanced up from the legal documents she was perusing in the overstuffed pink chair outside the dressing rooms. “It’s couture sizing. Totally different from street clothes.”

“She’s right.” Jen’s voice drifted over the flimsy white partition separating the two dressing rooms.

“So I haven’t gained twenty pounds since Saturday?” Ellie breathed a sigh of relief.

“Nope,” Jen said. “But you really shouldn’t be gorging on ice cream—it’s nothing but empty calories and processed sugars. You need to keep up your strength and endurance right now. Try snacking on walnuts. They’re chock-full of omega-three fats and magnesium, which should help with the depression.”

“Walnuts? Seriously? That’s your big mental-health tip?” Mara shook her head in disgust. “Remind me not to call you when my marriage falls apart.”

“Your marriage isn’t going to fall apart,” Jen said.

“Josh and I may not even make it down the aisle in the first place.” Mara’s ice blue eyes took on a steely glint. “Pre-nup negotiations are at a standstill.”

“Then why, may I ask, am I being forced to spend a Friday night trying on twee bridesmaid dresses?”

“Don’t complain. You’re getting off easy,” Mara said. “No tulle, no petticoats, no beribboned hats. Lucky for you, I have excellent taste.”

Ellie glanced down at the clingy, off-the-shoulder cocktail dress that barely covered her bosom. “But black satin? For a June wedding?”

“She’s just doing it to annoy her mother.” Jen emerged from the dressing room. The sample size absolutely swam on her petite, muscular frame, and the salesclerk abandoned Ellie to pin in the waist, hips, and chest on Jen.

Mara grinned. “Oh, how well you know me.”

“Wow.” Ellie’s shoulders slumped. “You look gorgeous.”

Jen wrinkled up her nose. “Such sincerity.”

“No, I mean it.” Ellie plucked at the fabric draped across her breasts. “You look all thin and effervescent and I just…don’t.”

Mara stashed her paperwork back in her briefcase and focused on her friends. “Ellie, hon, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Ellie rubbed the back of her neck. “Everything.”

“This is about Michael,” Jen predicted.

“Of course it’s about Michael. I just keep asking myself why he did it. Why why
why
?”

“I have a theory about that,” Mara said. “It has to do with the fact that he’s a complete tool.”

“Repeat after me.” Jen hiked up her hemline and crossed over to Ellie. “This is not your fault. Nothing you did or didn’t do made him cheat. You’re an excellent wife. An excellent mom.”

“Well, if I had nothing to do with anything, that leaves me completely powerless, doesn’t it?” Ellie dropped her arms in frustration. “We went to our first couples’ counseling session this week.”

Mara leaned forward. “And? How was it?”

“Well.” Ellie chose her words carefully. “It was interesting. The therapist asked why we were there, and Michael basically threw himself under the bus. He said he’d do anything to earn back my trust. You know, give me all his e-mail passwords, et cetera.”

“Well, what do you think?” Jen asked. “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie mused. “I
want
to believe him, but I’m afraid to. He sleeps in the guest room; he acts totally attentive and remorseful. At least I’m not homicidal with rage anymore. I feel…frozen. Empty. But I guess we have to start somewhere if we’re going to rebuild.” She clapped her hands together and smoothed out the satin puckering around her hips. “I shouldn’t be talking like this in front of the blushing bride-to-be.”

“Oh yeah, that’s me.” Mara rolled her eyes. “All lace and lily of the valley.”

“You and Josh are both being ridiculous,” Jen admonished. “Why don’t you just sit down together and talk it out?”

“Talk it out? Sure. Look what happened the last time we had problems and decided to ‘talk things out’: I ended up with some skeevy guy at a bar and a lifetime of guilt.”

“Wait, what?” Ellie stopped fussing with her gown and whipped around to face Mara. “What are you talking about?”

Mara’s eyes widened to cartoonish proportions. “Oops. Forget I said anything.”

“About a skeevy guy at a bar and a lifetime of guilt? I don’t think so. Spill.”

Mara turned on Jen. “Look what you made me do!”

“You brought it up, not me,” Jen pointed out.

“Since when do you two keep secrets from me?” Ellie couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice.

“We all have secrets,” Mara said. “You got into law school, I had a one-night stand.”

Ellie was torn between feeling offended and ravenous for details. Curiosity quickly won out. “When?”

Mara glanced helplessly at the bridal magazines and gown catalogs stacked on the coffee table next to her chair. “Do we really have to get into this right now?”

“Yes!”

The sales assistant backed out of the dressing room with a vague, polite smile. “I’ll put a rush on the order for the black satin. Let us know if you need anything else.”

When the three friends had the dressing room to themselves, Mara huffed and harrumphed and finally confessed. “It was a while ago. Josh and I were starting to get serious and I freaked out and pulled away, so then
he
freaked out and started making impossible demands.”

“What kind of impossible demands?”

“Oh, crazy stuff like he wanted to adopt a dog and buy a house together. And the more I told him I wasn’t ready for that, the harder he pushed. He would leave my Internet browser open to Petfinder.com, stuff like that.”

“Diabolical,” Jen teased.

“I know! He knew I couldn’t even keep a houseplant alive, let alone a four-legged mammal. As for cohabitation, I think you will have to agree that has not worked out well for me in the past.”

Ellie did agree. However, she attributed Mara’s dismal romantic track record more to the character of the men involved than to specific living arrangements.

“I told him all that right from our first date. Which, come to think of it, was all your fault.” She looked accusingly at Ellie.

“My fault?”

“Yeah. You strong-armed me into going to that food bank fundraiser where I met him and now look at my life: a shambles! I should have stayed off the charity circuit and stuck to the martini bars in Old Town. I’m way too dysfunctional to make it work with a do-gooder.” Mara grimaced. “
Anyway,
we’d only been seeing each other for like six months and one Sunday, he talked me into hitting an open house in Fountain Hills and he told the Realtor we were in the market for a three-bedroom and I said no we weren’t and we got into a huge blowout in some stranger’s kitchen. I left for a firm retreat the next day and…” She gritted her teeth. “Mistakes were made. You had just had Hannah and you were overwhelmed and sleep-deprived and—”

Ellie lifted her chin. “Oh, I see how it is. I get a touch of postpartum depression, and my best friends go AWOL on me.”

“I didn’t want to stress you out more!” Mara cried.

“This was right at the height of Hannah’s colic,” Jen said. “Don’t you remember how frazzled you were?”

“I’ve blocked it out,” Ellie said. “Nature’s way of tricking you into considering a second child.”

“Well,
I
remember,” Mara declared. “You were hanging on by one bloody fingernail. And then, by the time you got your head above water, I just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened.”

Ellie searched for a glimmer of hope here, and she found it in the engagement ring on Mara’s left hand. “But you and Josh managed to work it out, right?”

“Um, have you noticed that he and I aren’t speaking to each other?” Mara said. “We analyzed the whole thing to death for over two years, and what good did it do us? He still doesn’t trust me.” She turned to Jen. “I should have just taken your advice and never told him.”

Ellie turned to Jen. “You told her not to tell Josh she slept with someone else?”

“Well, yeah.” Jen started to squirm. “I mean, if he was never going to find out otherwise, and she was truly sorry and would never, ever do it again, what was the point of tormenting him by telling him?”

“How about honesty?” Ellie bristled.

“She would have to be honest with herself about what she did. Living with the guilt and remorse would be her punishment.” Jen fluffed up her short blond waves.

“Guilt and remorse? Give me a break.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “That sounds like something Michael would say.”

“Whoa.” Mara motioned for a time-out. “Let’s not turn this into a personal—”

“Cheating is personal!” Ellie clenched her fists.

“Okay, well, point taken,” Mara conceded. “But in retrospect, I do think Jen’s argument has merit. If I had never told Josh about what happened in San Diego—”

“You’d still be a cheater,” Ellie finished. “But you’d be a liar, too, on top of that. Let’s not sugarcoat the truth.” She knew she should shut up, but she couldn’t stop herself. “
You’re
the one who told me to file for divorce the day after I found out,” she reminded Mara. “
You’re
the one who said I should get the upper hand and screw him over.”

“I was trying to protect you, El.”

“You’re a hypocrite,” Ellie said. “And you know what? I don’t blame Josh for making you sign a cheating clause. He should be able to protect himself, too.” She yanked the black bridesmaid dress over her head in a rage. The zipper caught on the clasp of her necklace and ripped out a chunk of her silky brown hair.
“Ow.”

A deathly hush fell over the dressing room. Only the faint strains of piped-in classical music and the rustling of stiff taffeta broke the silence.

Mara snatched up her handbag and coat and stormed out of the salon. Ellie retreated into her dressing room. She hung her head and waited for Jen to break the silence.

Finally, her shame overcame her anger. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Jen cleared her throat. “I think we’ve all said enough.”

Ellie dug her fingernails into the fleshy pad of her palm. “I shouldn’t have…” She sighed. “That wasn’t fair.”

“Nooo,” Jen agreed. “No, it was not.”

“Should I go after her?”

“I’d leave her alone right now. She’s tough, but she’s not
that
tough, and you know she hates to show weakness.”

“No wonder she didn’t tell me.” Ellie sighed again. “I’m turning into a shrill, self-righteous bitch.”

The thin partition between the two dressing rooms shuddered slightly as Jen changed out of her gown. “You’re not a bitch. You’re just hurting right now. And angry. But get angry at the person who really deserves it: Michael. Don’t take it out on Mara.”

Ellie didn’t say anything.

“Hello?” Jen prompted.

“You’re right,” Ellie said. “But I can’t say to Michael what I just said to Mara.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” She thought about that framed family photo resting on the mantel. “Sometimes we have to make compromises.”

“Meaning what?” Jen sounded confused.

“I don’t know.” Ellie pressed her lips together. “I’m sure we’ll get it all worked out in therapy.”

“You need to start taking better care of yourself.” Jen’s shadowy form appeared on the other side of the slatted white door to Ellie’s dressing room. “A salad and a morning walk here and there isn’t going to cut it. Tell you what: Call me tomorrow afternoon when Hannah goes down for her nap, and I’ll come over and go through some yoga poses with you. Work up a detailed exercise and nutrition plan.”

“Once a personal trainer, always a personal trainer.” Ellie pulled on her green cashmere hoodie and jeans and emerged from her fitting room.