Around the Bend (23 page)

Susan hadn’t really
found
Annie, per se, she’d found Betty Williams, a friend of Annie’s, who had seen us with Harvey and gone up to Susan to ask where Dave was, which then somehow led into a conversation about Annie. I didn’t hear all of Susan’s convoluted explanation of how the conversation had come around to the third woman in Dave’s life, but it was something that had involved fall foliage, then Benzes, then who was the cuter
ER
doc.

“What did Betty finally tell you?” I asked. “About Annie, not the probability of George Clooney returning to the cast.”

“That Annie lives in Cleveland, which really isn’t all that much of a drive from here and—” at this, Susan drew in a breath “—that she has five kids.”

Kids.

The word slapped me, dropped into my gut with a sense of unfairness, of loss. That was supposed to be
our
next step, a baby to fill that empty bedroom at the top of the stairs. As I had for fifteen years, I’d put it off, figuring there’d be time.
Time for me to get over my parenthood phobia, time for Dave and me to talk, for me to tell him the truth about how I felt about the baby issue.

Time, it seemed, had had the last laugh. “Dave had children?”

“Well, Betty didn’t say that exactly. She just said Annie had five kids.” Susan’s gaze softened and I wondered if she had been struck cold hearing that word, too. “That could mean anything, Penny.”

Five seconds ago, I had been planning on grabbing Susan and hopping in the Benz, heading back to Newton without stopping for hitchhikers, blown tires, emergency births or anything else. But the new information opened a window in me, a window that was both painful—

And curious.

Despite how my heart constricted like a rubber band had been tied across it, I wanted to know more. “Did she say if Annie was his wife?”

Susan’s attention dipped into her purse as she looked for a tube of red lipstick and a little mirror. “I think we need to go see her,” Susan said, avoiding the question as she smeared the tube across her lips, turning them from faintly pink to shocking crimson.

Something lurked beneath the surface of that L’Oréal, I was sure of it. But Susan had already replaced the tube and turned guileless eyes on me. “Shall we get Harvey registered for the show?”

“I left him with Matt, his doggy agent. I’ve done my part.”

Susan reached out and took my arm, her grasp firm. “You don’t honestly mean to leave Dave’s dog here, do you?”

“That was my plan.”

“Since when?” Susan put her other fist on her hip. “I thought we were down here to get to know Dave through Harvey. And his people.”

“I’ve done enough of that,” I said, lying through my teeth.

“Uh-huh. We know almost nothing more than when we started out. There has to be something else.”

My nonchecked list already told me that. I rubbed at my neck, trying to ease the building tension. “On top of that, Matt wants
me
to take Harvey trotting around the ring for the show. He says Vinny gets stage fright and Harvey will only work with certain people and—”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Susan exclaimed, now pumping my arm up and down, using my extremities to emphasize her point. Two women passing by with We Love the Smokies shopping bags stopped and stared. Behind them, a slower-moving group of seniors was making its way down the sidewalk.

“It’s a terrible idea. For one, I have no training in this and for another—” Well, I couldn’t think of another just now, but I would.

“You should do it, Penny. It’ll help you stop being so—” She cut herself off and bit that perfect red lip.

“So what?”

“Well…” Susan paused, her gaze darting away, then back as if this was such a scandalous thing to say she had to make sure the entire busload of seniors with their red Merry Manor Retirement Home sweatshirts didn’t overhear. “You are a little
uptight.
”

“I am not.”

Susan just arched a brow. Apparently taking a fifteen-hour car trip with me had made her an expert on my personality.

“Why don’t
you
march Harvey around?” I asked her.

“Because that dog won’t listen to me. Why do you think I gave him to you?”

Thinking back, I realized Susan had hardly interacted with Harvey the whole time we’d been together. It was as if she were afraid of the dog, or maybe vice versa. If anything, I was sure the heels put him off. Little dog like that, tall spiky things near his paws…it had to look bad from his perspective. “I can’t, Susan. And I won’t.”

“Not even for Dave?”

“Why the hell should I do anything for Dave?” The Merry Manor crowd turned around, making no secret of their staring. I lowered my voice and whispered the words again.

“Because you used to love him, just like me, and he would have wanted Harvey to strut his stuff.”

“Dave is—” I still couldn’t speak the word, not without it choking up my throat “—gone, and he wouldn’t know if Harvey strutted or not.”

“Yeah, but you’d know and you’d feel bad.”

Susan was presuming an awful lot.

“I can’t talk about this now. I can’t decide right now.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to make sense of the thousands of thoughts going through my head. I needed some time to regroup. Get my bearings.

“Listen, why don’t we stay here tonight?” Susan smiled. “Everything always looks better in the morning.”

For once, I couldn’t argue with Susan. After the long day, the exhausting drive through the night, I wanted nothing more than a good night’s sleep and a bit of distance between all of this and me. “All right. Just one night. Then we either go to Cleveland or back home.”

Susan hesitated only a second before nodding. Second thoughts or simply her not paying attention? “Right. And while we’re here, you’ll think about letting your hair down a little?”

“I think I already did that.”

Susan snorted a little in disbelief. “I know your personality, Penny. I see it in my lawyer and the man who does my taxes and that career counselor who tried so damned hard to convince me that I could be a flight attendant. I mean, could you see me in one of those ugly uniforms, handing out peanuts?”

Actually, I could, but I kept that to myself.

“You have everything in your life so tightly controlled, that one step outside the gate has you worried that the whole ball of wax will come crashing down. I mean, you have
wet wipes
in your glove compartment for eating
French fries.”

Susan made it sound like a felony. “I don’t like the Benz to get dirty.”

“You stopped me from putting salt on my fries, in case the salt sprayed. It’s salt, Penny, not mud.” She shook her head, then went on. “You can live dangerously and everything will be as it was in the morning.”

“How can you say that after the week we just went through?” I turned away from her, willing the stupid tears that kept springing to my eyes to take a permanent vacation. “Nothing will ever be the same again.”

“That’s what’s so wonderful,” Susan said, pumping my arm again, like an oil rig that had hit a big cache of crude. “We can change. Do something different. Try a new life.”

“I don’t
want
to try a new life. I liked mine just the way it was.”

Confusion knit Susan’s brows together. “Then why did you
marry Dave? I mean, he was all about change. About doing something different every day.”

And then I knew. I knew what had gone wrong; I knew why my husband had needed another wife, another life.

Because I represented sameness. Ironing on Tuesdays, scrambled eggs on Sunday. Sex on Wednesdays and Fridays, a kiss goodbye in the morning, a hug hello at night. Lasagna on Sunday—

God, I had been a walking, talking stuck record. Who the heck wanted that when they could have a shiny new iPod, one that came with bigger breasts and better shoes?

What made me think that returning to my old way of living wouldn’t net me the same result? Assuming, that was, that I moved on someday, considered another relationship.

What if I did, and ended up in the same boat as before? With a man so tired of the ennui that he had to seek something else to fill his days?

I looked down at my button-down silky shirt and gray trousers, all as neatly pressed as they had been the day they’d come out of the dry cleaners. Lines aligned, buttons were snapped, lint hadn’t dared tread anywhere near me.

“You’re right, Susan.” If there’d been a list of top ten sentences I never expected to hear come out of my mouth, that was number one.

She beamed. “Of course I am. So, will you do it?”

“There’s really not much to it.”

I wheeled around and saw Matt standing there. How long had he been there, listening? And what was he thinking about me and my wet-wipe issues?

“You walk Harvey around a ring,” Matt said, coming
closer, “and toss him a treat from time to time. He’ll do all the heavy lifting.”

I looked down at the tiny, wriggling ball of fur at my feet and thought I’d done nothing but heavy lifting since Dave had died. If the piano-playing dog wanted to take a few of the concrete blocks off my shoulders, I’d buy him a year’s supply of Beggin’ Strips.

Georgia was thrilled when I called her later that night from our hotel room, a space that had all the personality of a cardboard box and about the same decor. “I knew this was going to go well for you, Penny. I had a feeling about it.”

“Going well?” I thought of the flat tire, the hitchhikers, the E.R. run and then Matt’s idea that I trot Harvey around. I’d left him with a dog, and without a commitment, because as much as I worried that my status quo was half the problem in my marriage, it still represented comfort. Organization was my life afghan and right now, I needed that crutch. “That’s like saying the
Titanic
had a great maiden voyage.”

Georgia laughed. “Look at it as an adventure.”

I glanced toward the closed bathroom door of the La Quinta Inn room Susan and I had rented. The Grand Resort Hotel had been full and we’d opted to share a space. I’d proposed it as a money-saving idea, since neither of us knew how the estate would pan out. Truth be told, she was beginning to grow on me.

And, the thought of being by myself didn’t exactly make me jump for joy. The last thing I needed late at night was to be alone with all these thoughts about why, and how, and when and where. I’d done altogether enough of that already.

“It has been different,” I told Georgia. “That’s for sure.”

“Different is good right now, Pen. I know you don’t think so, but it is.”

I murmured something noncommittal. Different had never been my strong suit. I didn’t plan on adding it to my personal deck of cards anytime soon.

“Oh, and you need to give Dave’s mom a call. She left a message on my machine, looking for you. Said something about wanting to clear up something unusual in Dave’s estate.”

I sank back against the bed, balancing the phone against my shoulder, and pressed my hands to my temples. “Do you think she knows?”

“She’s his mother. Don’t you think she would?”

“I was his wife. And I had no idea.”

“Oh, Pen, you’ll figure it out.” A doorbell sounded on Georgia’s end. “I’m sorry, hon, but I gotta go. My shiatsu massager is here.”

“You have a massage therapist who comes to your house?”

“Oh, no, not a person. A machine. Without you around to keep me busy, I’ve gotten hooked on QVC.” Georgia laughed. “So either send me money or come home soon.”

“I’ll be home soon as I can. There are a lot of…loose ends.”

Georgia paused and I could almost hear her sending me a mental hug. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Penny.”

I glanced at the bathroom door, where Susan was inside,
singing a Beatles song as she showered. “To be honest, I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for. Or what I’ve found.”

I told Georgia I loved her, then hung up and lay back against the pillows. A plan, that’s what I needed. I pulled out the pad of paper from the hotel, then started making a list of everything I wanted to cover tomorrow. Questions I still had, goals I hadn’t hit.

1. Find out who Annie is
   
2. Decide what to do with the dog
   
3. Call Georgia; ask her to take another look in Dave’s study for a will
   
4. Meet with Vinny. Tell him no way on the dog show idea
   
5. Determine legalities of this mess
   
6. Get myself untangled from the same mess
   

With each numbered item, calmness descended over my shoulders. Order was being restored, at least on this particular slip of paper. I studied the program guide for the Dog-Gone-Good Show, then tossed it to the side and slid under the covers.

The calmness ebbed, replaced by a wash of grief so strong it would have knocked me over if I’d been upright. The loss crushed my heart, squeezing it like an overjuiced orange.

Inside the bathroom, I heard the hair dryer start. The noisy Conair muffled my tears. I clutched the list, as if holding it could give me back the security I’d lost.

It didn’t. All I got was a paper cut.

A few minutes later, Susan left the bathroom, clad in a silky
blue nightshirt that skimmed her thighs. Quite the contrast to the oversize T-shirt I’d gotten for opening a Christmas Club account. I tried not to think about whether Dave had seen—and appreciated—that nightshirt and the slim, busty woman beneath it.

“Penny?” Susan asked after I had turned out the light. In the dark, her voice sounded miles instead of just a few feet away in the other double.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you think Dave did it?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, rolling over and clutching the second pillow to my chest and trying to get comfortable on the cheap mattress, avoiding the dip in the center. I could make out Susan’s slim shape beneath the blankets, her back to me, her hair in a loose ponytail.

“I always thought I was the one, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” What woman suspected her husband had an extra wife on the side? It certainly wasn’t something you saw on Maple Street in Anytown, U.S.A. Maybe there were bigamists on every street corner, but I doubted it.

“It’s like that guy on
Oprah,
did you see that show?” She didn’t wait for my answer. “He had nine wives.
Nine.
And they all lived in, like, the same state, and they all thought he was this big-shot navy pilot or something. I don’t know how he kept that many secret. At least you and I live in different states.” Susan was quiet for a long moment, and the dark seemed to wrap around us, joining us in a way that we hadn’t been before. “Do you think Dave was like that?”

“With nine wives? God, I hope not.”

Susan paused a moment. I could hear the alarm clock flip
the numbers from 10:56 to 10:57 p.m. “What did he tell you he did for work?” she asked.

Susan was trying to do what I had set out to do—uncover what was lies and what was truth. But I didn’t want her questioning my husband. To me, he was mine, always had been.

Susan had come
after
me, after Dave had said “I do” and “I promise” to
me.
Annie, if she even was a wife, had come after that. I was the first, I had the ownership claim.

But what did I really own? A man who’d run around the country, slipping marquise-cuts on women’s fingers, while taking his piano-playing dog on the road?

Not exactly a big prize at the bottom of my box of Cracker Jack.

“What did he tell you?” I asked Susan.

“That he worked in insurance. That’s how we met, you know.”

Oh, God. I didn’t want to hear this story. I didn’t want to know he had met Susan at one of the office parties I had skipped because it had been tax season. Or that she’d been the receptionist at the office, there to greet my husband every day with a smile and a stack of pink messages.

But Susan apparently lacked the ESP gene because she went on, undeterred. “I was in a car accident, a hit-and-run on the highway, when I was coming back from visiting a friend in Boston. This guy switched lanes and nicked me, sending my car into the guardrail. I was standing there, on the side of the highway, crying. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been in an accident before and I was clueless. But then, Dave saw me and pulled over, got out of his car, and he helped me figure out what to do. Who to call, all of that.”

“That’s Dave,” I admitted. It was the husband I had known,
a man who would stop and help a little old lady who had dropped her groceries, who never passed a man broken down on the side of the road with a hissing radiator without running to the closest gas station to buy him some water and antifreeze.

“And we got to talking, and because I was still so upset and shaky, he offered to drive me home. And we stopped for coffee and—”

“One thing led to another,” I cut in, not wanting the sordid details. Not wanting to picture them, swept up in the moment and hurrying off to the nearest Motel 6.

“No, not at all. It was a long time before anything like that happened. We kept in touch because I was having problems getting my insurance company to cover the accident and all, so he was kind of like my adviser.”

A friend. He’d started as her friend.

It was the exact way we had come together.

“So how did you two meet?” Susan asked, the question sounding like the kind you asked at a class reunion or a cocktail party, not in the darkened hotel room you were sharing with your husband’s other wife.

Nevertheless, she’d told me her story, and in that guilt women seemed to inherit along with breasts, I felt compelled to do the same. “I met Dave in college. He was a business major, I was going for finance, but we had a couple of classes that overlapped the two majors so we ended up in a study group together. We were friends, really, nothing else. Then he came up to me after a business ethics class one day, and asked me out. I said no.”

“You did?”

I nodded. “But he didn’t give up. He asked me out again the next day, but I still wouldn’t agree.”

“Why?”

“He wasn’t my type. I like men who are studious and quiet.” I laughed a little at the memory, the image I’d had for my future back then. “I guess I pictured myself marrying a professor in a tweed jacket. You know, the kind with the patches on the elbows? We’d sit in the study, him smoking his pipe while I balanced the checkbook or read the
Wall Street Journal
. We’d pour a glass of brandy and talk about world politics.”

Susan let out a yawn. “Oh, sorry. That wasn’t for you. It’s been a long day.”

I almost yawned myself at the thought of the future I’d once wanted, thinking it would have been so safe, devoid of the hairpin turns my younger years had held. “Dave didn’t fit that image.”

“He is the complete opposite of the tweed-and-pipe-smoking kind of guy.”

“Not to mention, every professor’s worst nightmare,” I said, laughing again, the memories seeming sweet in the dark, not painful. “Dave was the class clown. He’d crack up the class at the worst possible time.”

“He
was
good with a one-liner, wasn’t he?” Susan’s voice was soft, tinted with grief.

In that shared thought, a bond began to develop between me and Susan. Not the one forced upon us, but one that was growing out of the natural event of loss, and of sharing Dave.

“Yeah, he was,” I said. “He even…Oh, I shouldn’t tell you.”

“No, go ahead. I’m fine. I want to hear about what he was like. It’s almost like being with him.”

Susan was a stronger woman than I. There was no way I could have lain here, listening to her top ten favorite mem
ories of my husband and found it anything short of torturous. But she seemed genuinely interested and the urge to voice Dave’s name had grown stronger in me, as if saying these words would help make all that had happened seem real, not some distant dream had by another woman.

“At our wedding,” I said, my mind winging back fifteen years as easily as if it were two hours ago, “when the pastor got to the part about whether there were any objections, Dave said—”

“Wait, I know this. Let me ask my lawyer for a second opinion,” Susan finished. “And then, he looked around, asked some poor guy who barely knew Dave if he had any objections, which about gave the pastor a coronary until Dave grinned. Five seconds later, the whole chapel was laughing and making lawyer jokes.”

Something hot and sharp stung at the back of my eyes. “He said that at your wedding, too?”

“Yeah, but Penny, you know Dave. Once he had a good joke, he used it everywhere he could.”

“Yeah.” I drew in a breath and rolled over, clutching a pillow to my chest that would never take the form of the husband I had lost.

In the space of a few minutes, I had lost more than a husband. Every memory I had of him was now tainted. I’d never be able to sit in his favorite chair again, flipping through our photo albums and thinking I was the only one who had heard that line, felt that kiss on my cheek, known that event.

He’d doubled everything, damn him, and now he’d stolen more than my life. He’d taken my memories, too. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

“Okay,” Susan said, but her voice said she didn’t believe me. I thought of apologizing to her for being short and crabby, of trying to explain, but I couldn’t. She meant well—if there was one thing I’d learned about Susan and her nonstop chatter, it was that she meant well by every word—and I wasn’t in the mood to hurt anyone else today.

Silence descended over the room, heavy and thick as a vat of peanut butter. I lay there, pretending I was asleep but really staring into the dark, busy hating my husband.

I hated him, I hated the dog, I hated the entire situation. I didn’t want to get to Annie’s house and hear Dave’s best lines again.

To hell with Cleveland. Let Susan rent a car and go meet Annie. Susan seemed remarkably well-adjusted to this whole thing, as if it were just a step out of her ordinary day. She’d been chipper and bright, as happy-go-lucky as a leprechaun. While I had a perpetual my-husband-betrayed-me stew cooking in my intestines.

Georgia had said I could do this, that it would be good for me to take a walk outside the perfectionist ring.

Fear tightened its grip on me. No way. I wasn’t strong enough for this.

Then the fleeting thought that this dog show could actually be fun ran through my mind. How would being a part of this change the Penny Reynolds I knew?

I shut the thought off, shoved it to the back. I’d already had one major life change this week. I’d hit my quota.

Tomorrow, I was going home and going back to work. To something more normal than a dog show and the
Groundhog Day
version of my marriage. A few days of tax preparation and I’d be deep in columns and rows, straight lines and balanced totals.

And maybe, just maybe, with enough little green grids, I could fool myself into thinking that I’d never heard Susan regurgitate what had been one of my fondest memories.

Yeah, and maybe the book of tax-code updates from the IRS would be a little light reading. I wasn’t simply looking for a miracle.

I was looking for a rearrangement of the cosmos.