The Sweetest Revenge (4 page)

“
So, are you going?” Jim
asked.

“
I have to go,” I said. “It’s
my job.”

“
Can I come?” he asked. “I’d
like to see her paintings.”

Yeah, I just bet you would, I
thought. You’d probably like to see some other stuff too.

“
It’s going to be boring,”
I said, hoping to deflect him.

“
But I know her!” Jim said.
“I want to come.”

“
Do what you like,” I said,
getting up from the table and going upstairs. Bastard!

Carly had done such a good job
with the promotion of the reception that even Jim knew about it.

So, I went with my department the
night of the reception, having forced myself into a size 1X black
suit. I wore my flat black shoes. I pulled my brown hair back into an
unattractive ponytail. I cringed as I walked into the room, wanting
to run to the bathroom and hide.

And then I saw her, sitting on a
couch with Linda, the events coordinator. Kimberly was resplendent in
her peacock blue dress. Her trim legs were crossed neatly and she
laughed at something Linda was saying. I knew in that instant that
there was no way I was going to meet her. No way.

I turned to Blond Ambition. “I’m
feeling so sick, I need to go to the bathroom,” I said.

She looked at me. “You haven’t
looked well all day,” she said.

Well, that was nice. I haven’t
looked well! But, honestly, I didn’t think I’d looked well for
years.

“
Can you and Carly handle
things for a while?” I asked weakly.

“
Of course. You go take care of
yourself,” Blondie said.

I went into the bathroom and sat
on the velvet settee. I hoped no one would come in for a while. And
no one did. Gave me time to think about how I was going to get out of
this situation. The president and vice presidents of the university
were going to be in attendance! I’d better have a good excuse for
my absence.

I could hear the room filling up
outside the bathroom. A couple of women, one I recognized, came in to
use the facility and refresh their make-up. They looked at me on the
settee.

“
Are you all right, dear?”
Mrs. Markum asked me. She was a donor to the university and attended
all of the events, even though she must be ninety.

“
I’m not feeling well
tonight,” I said. “I need to just rest up a few minutes.”

“
I’m sorry, dear,” she
said. “Can I do anything for you?”

She was sweet. “No, thank you,”
I said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Thankfully, she left the bathroom
then with her young friend.

After another five minutes or so,
I cracked the door to the bathroom and looked out into the reception
area. My heart lurched when I saw Jim talking to Kimberly. Dammit,
he’d gotten there earlier than I expected.

I knew for certain that I was
never going out there. I called Kate on her cell phone and got her
voice mail.

“
Kate, please call me,” I
said. “I’m really sick.”

Twenty minutes and several
bathroom visitors later, Kate finally called me.

“
Your husband asked me where
you are,” she said. “I told him you’re not feeling well.”

“
Thanks, Kate. This is worse
than I thought. I’ve got to get out of here and get home. Can you
tell Jim for me? I can’t go out there this sick. And can you handle
everything in my place?”

“
Of course,” Kate said. “I’ll
be happy to handle it. You just get yourself home.”

Relieved, I slunk out of the
bathroom and out the back door of the gallery. It was raining lightly
when I walked out, through the parking lot to my car. But I didn’t
care if I got wet. I was humiliated. As I drove home, I started to
wonder how I was going to keep my job if I couldn’t even do the
tasks I was responsible for.

When I got home—sweet home—I
poured myself a glass of wine and went upstairs. I turned on the TV
in the bedroom and started watching Out of Africa. I lay there for a
long time awake, but Jim never called me. He knew I was sick, but he
never called. The reception was over at nine and he should have been
home shortly after that.

But he didn’t come home after
that. I fell asleep at eleven and Jim still wasn’t home. I don’t
know when he got there.

I woke up at seven the next
morning and Jim was already gone, probably to the gym. Unlike me, he
liked to keep himself fit. He showered and changed into his suit at
the gym, which was two blocks from his office. I wouldn’t see him
until that evening—if then.

I decided I wasn’t going to
work. Make my illness stick. I didn’t really have anyone to call to
say I wouldn’t be in since Sheila was out of town on an advancement
trip. I was the head of my own department, so I called Carly.

“
I’m too sick to come in,”
I said.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
she asked with concern.

“
I’ve got some sort of
stomach bug. I’ve got fever and chills. It’s awful.”

“
Do you think you should go to
the doctor?” she asked.

“
I will if things don’t get
better soon,” I said.

I felt a pang of guilt when I
hung the phone up. I made myself a breakfast of bacon and eggs to
make myself feel better. I watched the “Today Show” as I sipped
my coffee. When that was over, I sat at my computer and went on
Facebook.

Dammit! Carly had already posted
photos from the reception. She must’ve taken them with her phone
because the university photographer was never that quick in getting
our photos to us.

And there was Jim with Kimberly.
He was in a lot of the photos. He had stuck by Kimberly like glue! I
was enraged. He hadn’t even bothered to check on his sick wife!
Yeah, I wasn’t sick—except sick at heart—but he didn’t know
that. He had chosen to stay at the reception, laughing it up with
Kimberly and being her escort for the evening. In front of my
co-workers. I was humiliated.

I ate some ice cream. I watched
game shows. I ate some cookies. Jim called around three.

“
Hey,” he said jovially.
“Carly said you were sick last night and then you were asleep by
the time I got home.”

“
Why didn’t you call to check
on me?” I blurted out.

“
I didn’t think you’d want
me to bother you,” he said. “They said you were hanging in the
bathroom, so I thought. . . .” He trailed off.

“
You’re a real prince,” I
said slamming the phone down.

Jim texted me later to say he had
to work late on a brief and not to wait up. He’d get supper brought
in.

And that was how it went after
Kimberly Williams arrived in town. Jim became busier than ever. He
couldn’t make it home for supper anymore most nights. That was when
I tried the HCG diet, and that was when I failed once again to regain
my youthful figure.

And then I found him in bed with
Kimberly Williams. I recognized her instantly as she pulled the
chenille spread up to her chin in a desperate attempt to hide her
nakedness, her dark hair falling across her shocked face, Jim’s
naked body beside her, his white butt like a cleaved moon.

Chapter
Six

On my second day of spring break,
I stripped the bed in the spare room where I had found Jim and
Kimberly and put everything, including the pillows, in a large
plastic bag. I even put my grandmother’s chenille spread in the bag
because it was tainted and I could never look at it again. I hated
Jim for that. I carried the plastic bag to the trash.

Then I lugged the mattress down
the stairs and out the front door. That wasn’t easy to do. The
mattress kept falling over. Finally, I dragged it across the front
yard and set it on the curb. I went back inside and pulled the box
springs out. That was easier than the mattress because it was stiff.
My rage at Jim helped me drag it along to the street.

The bed itself was on a metal bed
frame and had no headboard or footboard. I unscrewed the screws from
the frame and, piece by piece, carried the frame to the curb. That
was all I could do. I couldn’t put the spare room on the curb, but
I would have if I could have. I went back up the stairs and closed
the door to the spare room. I would have to figure it out later.

My heart was beating hard as the
adrenaline pumped through me. I wasn’t through yet. I went to Jim’s
closet and pulled all of his clothes out onto the bed. I emptied his
dresser of underwear, T-shirts, and socks. I put everything into
plastic lawn bags and drug them downstairs. I put them in the car
trunk and drove downtown.

When I was in front of Jim’s
building, I texted him. “I’ve got your clothes down here,” I
wrote. “You can come get them because they’re going on the
sidewalk.”

I didn’t wait for a reply. I
lugged the bags out of the trunk and sat them on the sidewalk in
front of Jim’s building. I was pulling away when I saw Jim coming
out the front doors.

And then I went home, depleted. I
had done what I could.

I spent the rest of spring break
sleeping late, staying up late to watch movies, sleeping late again.
I wandered through the house during the day, taking note of all the
things that needed to be done. The entire house could use a paint
job, for example. One of the kitchen cabinet doors didn’t latch
properly anymore. The patio had developed a crack that seemed to be
getting larger every day. The landscaping was overgrown. The roof was
looking worn and leaked in the laundry room. The house was falling
down from neglect! One of its owners had been eating herself to a
level of fat she had never envisioned and the other owner was
immersing himself in his job and his mistress.

Even though I was on spring break
and could eat anytime I wanted to, I didn’t. My appetite never came
back that week and I subsisted on toast and scrambled eggs. Once, I
made myself a hamburger but could only finish half of it. I didn’t
deny myself the wine, and I drank three bottles of chardonnay during
that week.

And then it was Monday and time
to go back to work. When I forced myself out of bed that morning, I
realized that it had been a wasted break. I had accomplished nothing.
I had been nowhere interesting. I had just watched TV and slept. I
felt dejected as I pulled my black suit out of the closet.

I felt dejected as I pulled the
zipper up on the pants, expecting to force it as I always did. But
the zipper slid up its track easily. I looked at myself in the
mirror. My hips and stomach looked smaller. I pulled on the white
tank top that squeezed around my stomach, but it slid on smoothly.
The jacket, which always felt tight around the arms, felt relaxed and
comfortable. I had lost weight!

Feeling confident, I chose
low-heeled black shoes, which I hadn’t worn in a year. I felt so
good, that I bothered to apply some make-up and lipstick for the
first time in forever. There wasn’t much I could do with my hair
without being late, so I pulled it back and put a clip in it.

“
You look different,” Carly
said when I walked by her desk toward my office.

“
I do?” I asked.

“
Yes. You look. . . .” She
groped for the right word. “You look confident,” she finally
said.

I’d take it.

I expected to hear from Jim as
soon as spring break was over, but he didn’t contact me that
Monday. Or the next day or the day after that. By the end of the
week, I realized I’d been expecting to hear from him. Expecting him
to beg me to take him back. That had empowered me in a way I had not
realized until he didn’t call me.

I felt deflated. I had been
counting on his protestations of love. His apologies. And now I
wasn’t getting it. It dawned on me that he was still with Kimberly.
I had refused him, and he was staying with Kimberly.

Then I remembered that I told Jim
I’d call him, or my lawyer would. But I couldn’t do that. He knew
how to call me! If he wanted me back so bad, he should have called
me. But he clearly didn’t even want to.

By the second week back at work,
I knew I had to get a lawyer. I called the only one I knew to call.
Wesley McKinley, Jim’s archenemy. Wesley was a barracuda divorce
lawyer and I knew he’d be happy to go up against Jim.

I met with Wesley on Tuesday
afternoon in his downtown office on the seventh floor of the bank
building.

“
Let me tell you what I want,
Wesley,” I said sitting in a chair in front of his desk. “I want
the house, I want Jim to be responsible for all debts, and I want a
thousand dollars a month in alimony.”

“
Let me tell you what I’m
gonna get you,” Wesley said in response. “I’m going to get you
the house and make Jim responsible for the debts. But I’m gonna get
you four thousand a month in alimony, plus one half of all financial
assets.”

“
Are you kidding?” I asked,
incredulous. “That’ll break him.”

“
And that’s the point,”
Wesley said with a smirk on his face. “He did you wrong and now
he’s gonna pay. That’s how it works in this business.”