The Replacement Wife (17 page)

He was insatiable in the bedroom. Elise would often smile, as they lay curled together after making love, thinking how lucky she was. Once, she’d told him, “I read in
Cosmo
that most married couples have sex only four or five times a month. Which makes us either incredibly horny or totally aberrant.” She giggled, feeling a sense of abandon she’d never known with another man, though admittedly her experience was limited—she’d only had two other lovers before Dennis.

He chuckled. “Four or five times a month, huh? You know what I call that? Just getting started.”

Five years into their marriage, he was assigned to a team handling an important case that had him flying out to L.A. every other week. The first few trips, he called home every night he was away to say he missed her. He’d list, in a throaty voice, all the ways he planned to make it up to her when he got home, or ask playfully what kind of underwear she had on. But as the months wore on, the calls became less frequent with each trip. There were nights when he didn’t call at all, though he always had a perfectly good excuse—a meeting that ran over, a late dinner with a client—so she didn’t worry; she simply chalked it up to the price of his being made junior partner.

Then one day, he phoned from L.A. to say he was taking a few days off, for a long weekend of R&R in Palm Desert. “God knows I’ve earned it,” he said, sounding so exhausted she didn’t question it for an instant. And if she was the tiniest bit hurt he hadn’t asked her to join him, she told herself it didn’t mean he had fallen out of love with her. Even happily married couples needed time apart now and then. It was normal. It was
healthy,
in fact.

It didn’t mean your husband was having an affair.

So Elise picked up the proverbial hammer to unwittingly pound the nails into her own coffin in saying, “Of course, sweetie. I’ll miss you like mad, but I’ll have Glenn to keep me company.” Glenn Stokowski, a close friend and colleague of hers, was so mild-mannered not even a jealous husband would consider him a threat. “I’ll see if he wants to go to the movies or something.”

Incredibly, she didn’t grow suspicious even when repeated calls to Dennis’s number over the course of the next few days went straight to voicemail. She merely assumed, as he later confirmed, the resort he was at was in a remote place that was out of cell phone range. What possible reason would he have to cheat on her? They still had sex regularly, and if he wasn’t quite as attentive as before it was only natural—they weren’t newlyweds anymore—and didn’t mean they had grown apart. “We’re like a pair of swans,” he had once told her. “We’re mated for life.”

The way she found out about the affair was so prosaic it made her cringe almost as much as the betrayal itself: lipstick. Not lipstick on his collar, a tube of lipstick wedged between the couch cushions, which she came across while vacuuming one day, several months later. At first, she’d merely wondered idly whose it was. They hadn’t had company in a while—Dennis was always too busy or tired to have friends over for dinner, and unlike her parents’ neighbors in Granstburg, New Yorkers weren’t in the habit of dropping in unannounced. Then finally comprehension dawned, all the clues she’d ignored until now coming together, connecting in a hard punch to her solar plexus:
He’s cheating on me
. The breath went out of her lungs, and she sank to the floor, where she lay curled in a ball, sobbing. The pain she felt was worse than any she’d ever known.

Elise half expected—half hoped even—Dennis would come up with a plausible explanation when she confronted him. Instead, he broke down and confessed. There were the usual disclaimers: He hadn’t meant for it to happen . . . it was only because he and Amanda, the team leader on the case that had them both flying out to L.A. every other week, were together so much of the time . . . and no, God no, they had never done it in his and Elise’s bed, he wouldn’t do that to Elise. As if it made the betrayal any less hurtful that he’d had the decency to screw his girlfriend on the couch instead. He begged her forgiveness, promising to break it off with Amanda. “It’s
you
I love, not her,” he wept. “Whatever you think of me right now, we can fix this.”

“
You
might be able to fix this. I can’t,” she told him as she stood by the bed he claimed not to have desecrated (though how could she be sure?), watching him pack the suitcase she’d dragged from the closet, saving him the trouble. He thought he was only going away for a few days, but she had other ideas.

“I made a mistake,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks as he beseeched her, a pair of rolled-up dress socks in one hand and a canister of shaving cream in the other. He looked like a man packing for a trip from which there was no return (some part of him must have known, even then). “But if you can find a way to forgive me, I’ll make it up to you, I swear. I’m still the same guy you married.”

What Elise felt then was like the blue northers she recalled from childhood—storms that would roll in over the Great Plains like freight trains—as anger surged through her, ripping away the last, trembling blade of faith. “No, you’re not,” she told him. “The man I married would never have done this to me.” With that, she walked out, leaving him to finish his packing . . . and begin his new life. Six months later, as soon as the ink was dry on their divorce papers, he married Amanda. Recently, Elise had heard they were expecting their first child.

Now, a year later, she pondered the strange request from Camille Harte. The irony was too rich: Elise, whose husband had cheated on her, was expected to play the part of the other woman in this new scenario.

Except it wouldn’t be cheating. Camille had been quite clear about its being strictly platonic, at least in the beginning. Not that Elise was looking for love—she hadn’t been on a date since her divorce and had no wish to ever again be in a position where a man could wound her the way Dennis had. In that sense, she was indeed the perfect candidate. And from Camille’s description of him, her husband sounded like a devoted family man, so there’d be no unwanted overtures on his part. Still, every instinct told her to steer clear. Even if she wasn’t going to be tempted to sneak off to a motel with another woman’s husband, she didn’t want the idea to so much as cross her mind even in rejecting it.

Nevertheless, her heart went out to Camille. How could she refuse the request of a dying woman? Maybe it wouldn’t hurt just to meet Camille’s family. Probably nothing would come of it, and then she could walk away with nothing to weigh on her conscience. She contemplated this as she rode the subway to work, the day after her lunch with Camille, and was still in a quandary when she reached the gated entrance to the school grounds. Making her way up the path to the main building, she passed mock cherry trees in bloom and flowerbeds ablaze with tulips and daffodils. Unlike the public schools, and most private schools, in Manhattan, Saint Luke’s School, on Hudson Street, looked more like the elementary school in Grantsburg that she’d gone to as a child, its landscape dominated by trees and grass rather than concrete and asphalt. Normally, it soothed her, all that greenery, but today she was too lost in thought to take much notice.

Elise didn’t realize she wasn’t alone, as she entered the faculty lounge and made a beeline for the coffee machine, until she heard a familiar voice observe glumly, “So it’s true.” She turned to find her friend Glenn seated at the round Formica table, hunched over a steaming mug of tea.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t see you. Is what true?” she asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“I really am invisible to the opposite sex.”

“Uh-oh. Does this have something to do with last night’s date?”

“Yup. Another one bites the dust.”

She sat down across from him. “As bad as the woman who turned out to be ten years older and eighty pounds heavier than in her photo and who moaned about her dead dog the whole time?”

“Worse. In fact, I think this was the worst one yet.”

Elise found that hard to believe. Who could be worse than the dead-dog lady or the female executive who’d insisted they go Dutch treat—to Gramercy Tavern, no less—then when the check came, had sat back as if she expected Glenn to pay? Or the vegan who told him she couldn’t see herself dating anyone who ate meat? Glenn’s tales of woe about the women he’d met online were partly why Elise herself didn’t date. Each week brought some new horror story.

“What was it this time?” she asked.

“She shot me down before we even got around to ordering drinks.”

“That’s it?”

“You had to be there. It was the
way
she did it.”

“What did she say?”

“That she didn’t think I was her type, and there was no point in either of us wasting our time.”

“Ouch.” Elise winced in sympathy.

“Actually, in a weird way she did me a favor,” he went on in the same glum tone. “It forced me to take a good look at myself. Let’s face it. I’m no Casanova. You know what I am? I’m Charlie Brown with the football. Which is why”—he straightened his shoulders, wearing a grim look of resolve—“I’ve decided it’s time to throw in the towel. What’s the point of putting myself out there if every time I either get shot down or end up being the bad guy?”

“I guess the point is to keep going until you find the right person,” she replied cautiously.

“Frankly, I don’t think she’s out there.”

“You won’t know unless you keep looking.”

“Isn’t that a tad hypocritical?” He raised his eyebrows at her over the rim of his mug as he sipped his tea. She frowned, and he went on, “I seem to recall your telling me you’d rather walk over a bed of hot coals than put yourself out there again.”

“That was when I was in the middle of a divorce.”

“And how many dates have you been on since then? Oh, let’s see . . . zero.” He held up his hand, making a circle with his thumb and index finger. “Admit it, you’re worse than I am. You won’t even go out with perfectly reasonable-seeming guys who are into you and who don’t obsess about dead dogs or try to get you to eat seitan.”

“Okay, you’ve made your point. But at least I’m not wallowing in misery.”

“No, just popcorn and DVDs.” He smirked at her, reminding her of their standing Saturday-night date. Usually, they stayed in. They had dinner together at her place or his, then afterward they’d watch a movie on DVD, whatever had come in the mail that week from Netflix, which often made for an eclectic mix, since Glenn was into action pictures and Japanese anime, and her taste ran more toward the likes of
Sleepless in Seattle
and
Julie & Julia.
Elise didn’t know how she’d have gotten through the past year without Glenn. He’d been more than just supportive; he’d been her entire support system, with her family and childhood friends so far away.

Elise reached across the table to give his hand a squeeze. “Just because I’m gun-shy, it doesn’t mean you should give up. Anyway, don’t forget, I found what I was looking for.”

“Right. What’s-his-name.” Glenn refused to speak Dennis’s name. It was his lone, small revenge against the man who’d hurt his dearest friend. “The guy who soured you on all other men.”

“Except you,” she said.

“That doesn’t count—we’re not dating.”

Elise wondered why she and Glenn had never clicked romantically. She didn’t know if it was because they’d met while she was still married or because they were colleagues and she’d long ago made it a rule never to date a coworker, after she was fired from her first job, at the Dairy Queen in Grantsburg when she was in high school, because the assistant manager, who was also her boyfriend, decided to break up with her and thought it would be too awkward to continue to work together. It wasn’t that she didn’t find Glenn attractive or fun to be with. She smiled, remembering the time they’d gotten into a water pistol fight in the backyard of his parents’ house, in Amagansett, that had ended with them tussling on the lawn, soaked to the skin and laughing like a pair of goons, while he attempted to wrest her pistol from her grip. Later that same day, they’d gone bowling, and she recalled thinking at the time how nice it was that she could do stuff like that with Glenn, stuff her more sophisticated friends would find boring or provincial.

Glenn’s dismal track record with women was a mystery as well. She suspected it was partly because he wasn’t exactly the stuff of fantasies: neither the bad boy with the day-old stubble and washboard abs, nor a slick, Master-of-the-Universe type who wore shirts with monogrammed French cuffs. Glenn was just . . . average. Average height and build, with a face neither handsome nor homely but somewhere in-between and hair the color of the brown corduroy jacket he had on. His eyes were his best feature—eyes the blue of a picture-postcard sky.

Elise didn’t doubt he’d find love eventually. As for herself, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was time she got out of her rut and tried something new. She took a sip of her coffee and made a face. “Ish. How can anyone drink this stuff? It could double as paint thinner.” Normally, she stopped at the Starbucks on the way to work, but this morning she’d been running late. She hadn’t slept well the night before—she couldn’t stop thinking about Camille’s proposal—and as a result had fallen back to sleep after shutting off her alarm when it went off at the usual ungodly hour.

“Want me to make you a cup of tea?” he offered.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I should get to my classroom. I still have some papers to grade.” She rose and walked over to the sink, dumping the remains of her coffee down the drain.

“You mean you didn’t get to them last night?” She heard the surprise in his voice. Usually, she had her students’ papers graded before her favorite TV shows came on in the evenings.

She kept her face averted as she rinsed out her mug. “I was busy.”

“Oh, I get it. Hot date?” She turned to find him grinning at her.

“Very funny.”

Glenn stood up, gathering his things, and together they exited the faculty lounge. Other faculty members waved to them as they strolled along the corridor on the way to their classrooms. Elise was cheered by the stir of activity and bright display of student paintings on the walls. Even Glenn was smiling. He paused outside her classroom and gave her a light tap on the forearm with the rolled-up papers in his hand. “Hey, you doing anything this weekend?” he asked.