Good Luck (4 page)

The blonde apparently knew the signs too, for she began to encourage him. “Come on, baby, come on. You feel so good inside me,” she said in a breathy, bad-porn sort of way that struck me as truly ridiculous. So ridiculous, I snorted. It wasn’t a laugh; more a sound of horrified disbelief.

Elliott opened his eyes then and saw me. He halted abruptly, mid-thrust, and the color drained from his face.

“Shit,” he said.

The blonde opened her eyes too. “What’s wrong, baby? Don’t stop now.”

I looked from her to him, while my tired brain—already on emotional overload—whirred to process what was happening, to accept that the last shreds of security were being stripped away from me. And then I burst into tears for the third time that day.

Three

         
I WASN’T SURE WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
next in this sort of situation. Obviously the blonde had to leave. Elliott too. But as I sat on the living-room couch, clutching a forest-green throw pillow to my chest like a shield, it struck me that it was taking them a ridiculously long time to dress and vacate the bedroom. I’d stopped crying, partly because I was sick of crying and partly because I felt suspended—not in numb disbelief this time, but in sharply edged disappointment.

Elliott was an asshole. An even bigger asshole than Maisie had always thought him to be. And I’d wasted the past three years of my life on this asshole. Three years of trying to coax him along into moving in together, getting engaged, marrying me, having children. Three years of putting up with his excuses and chronic commitment phobia and telling myself over and over again that he’d come around to appreciate the benefits of domesticity. Men always did. Even Joe, who had fallen head over heels in love with Maisie on their first date, had balked when it came time to get engaged. There was a three-month period where every time Maisie said, “I want a ring,” Joe would respond by trilling a telephonic
“Riiiinnnngggg.”
Maisie was not amused. The last time Joe did this, she promptly dumped him. He showed up on her doorstep three hours later with a dozen roses, a bottle of champagne, and a diamond engagement ring. Joe swore up and down that he had bought the ring weeks earlier and was just waiting for the right moment to pop the question.

But Elliott wasn’t Joe. As far as I knew—and I was pretty sure I would, since this was not a topic on which Maisie would hold back—Joe had never been caught fucking a blonde with concrete tits in their master bedroom.

And what was up with that sexual position, anyway? Maybe it was an irrelevant and even inappropriate point to dwell on, but Elliott and I had never had sex like that. He’d always been solidly in favor of the missionary position and hadn’t even liked it when I was on top. Once, when we’d both had a few too many Bloody Marys over brunch, he’d plucked up the courage to suggest anal sex. Actually, he didn’t so much ask as just head in that direction. I’d shrieked, jumped off the bed, and spent the next two weeks wondering if he was really a closet case.

Maybe the blonde has anal sex with him,
I thought bitterly.
Maybe she likes anal sex. Maybe that’s why he cheated on me. And what the hell are they doing back there? They couldn’t possibly be trying to finish…could they?

Just when I was contemplating this horrifying thought—really, how could they? It would be the very worst of manners—Elliott finally appeared. He had taken the time to button up his oxford shirt, tuck it into his pressed chinos, and put on his shoes. As he stood in front of me, he bowed his head, which made him look like a little boy who’d been caught being naughty.

“Lucy…” he began, and then—apparently having no idea what to say next—stopped. He stood silently, staring down at his feet.

“You’re not going to tell me that this isn’t what it looks like, are you?” I asked acidly.

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you…Well, I didn’t want you to find out like this,” Elliott said haltingly.

I stared at him. “Find out?” I repeated.

Elliott looked anguished. His face was pale and drawn, and he kept running one hand through his hair. If I didn’t hate him so much, I might have almost felt sorry for him.

“What?” I asked.

“I think it was all just happening so fast. Moving in together, all the talk of getting married. It was just…too much, too quickly,” he said.

“Too quickly? Elliott, we’ve been together for three years!”

“I just think…” Elliott let out a low groan and rubbed his head with both hands, as though to loosen his thoughts. “If it’s right, it shouldn’t be so hard to move forward, should it? It should just…well, flow. Don’t you think?” He looked expectantly at me, as though hoping for understanding.

“Flow?” I repeated.

“That’s how it is with Naomi,” Elliott explained. He suddenly seemed eager to discuss it, as though this were a theory he’d been working on for a while and was excited to finally be able to share it with me. “It just…flows. Do you know what I mean? Flow.”

He made a swimming-fish movement with one hand.

This was too much. As if it weren’t bad enough that, in the course of one day, I’d been falsely accused of sexually harassing a student, lost my job, had my car die and be towed off to the repair shop, fallen to pieces in front of a police officer,
and
walked in on my live-in boyfriend screwing a woman who had much nicer hair than me, now on top of all of that I had to listen to pathetic excuses about how we didn’t flow?

It’s really quite amazing how you can go from loving someone so much you can’t imagine your life without them to hating them with every last molecule of your being, all in the space of a few moments. A white-hot burning anger lashed up within me, electrifying me out of my dazed stupor.

“Get out of my house,” I said, spitting the words at him. “And take Miss Fake Tits with you.”

“They’re not fake.” This was from Naomi, who had apparently been hovering in the hallway, just out of sight. She now stepped forward into the living room. She was dressed in head-to-toe white—a fitted T-shirt, linen trousers—and had taken the time to put on lipstick.

I stared at her, and she had the grace to blush.

“Look, I’m really sorry you had to find out about us like this,” Naomi said.

She looked at me beseechingly—as though she had inadvertently cut me off in traffic and saying sorry might fix things. I guessed Naomi was one of those women who can’t stand anyone not liking her. Which probably made her the perfect match for Elliott. They could trip off together into the sunset, as shallow as puddles and both convinced that they were nice people.

“It’s not okay, and you’re certainly not forgiven,” I said.

Naomi looked hurt. “I think you should know—we’re in love. We didn’t mean to hurt anyone. It just happened.”

“I don’t care,” I said. Which was a lie. Of course I cared. Her declaration made it just that much worse. The idea that they’d been at it long enough to fall in love—

No. I couldn’t think about that now.

“Leave your key,” I said to Elliott.

“My key?” he repeated.

“Your house key. The key to my house. The house you no longer live in,” I said.

“Oh…right,” Elliott said. He fumbled for his key ring, looking a bit confused, as though he hadn’t thought ahead to all of this ending up with him homeless. Well, what did he expect? That we’d continue to live together, with him in the spare bedroom and Naomi dropping by for sleepovers? I felt a stab of pleasure knowing that his condo was sublet.

“You and your commitment phobia can move in with Naomi,” I said nastily. “She deserves you both.”

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“I can’t,” Elliott finally said. Naomi looked at her feet. Another flash of understanding hit me.

“Let me guess: Miss Fake Tits is
Mrs.
Fake Tits,” I said.

“I’m separated,” Naomi said, a tinge of resentment creeping into her voice. “And my breasts are not fake.”

“Give me a break,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He may be stupid enough to buy that line, sweetheart, but I happen to know what real boobs look like. Those aren’t even particularly good fakes. Breasts are supposed to move now and then. Jiggle a bit. Respond to gravity.”

“Lucy, please,” Elliott said pleadingly.

Suddenly I just went all flat inside. All of my anger and contempt fizzled out, and I wanted for the two of them to be gone, so that I could be alone to have the emotional breakdown I deserved.

I held out my hand, palm facing up. “Key,” I said. “Now.”

Elliott slid the key off his ring and handed it to me.

“When would be a good time for me to come by and get my things?” he asked.

I hated that he was sounding so reasonable and in control of himself. I closed my eyes and silently counted. When I reached ten, I still felt like stabbing Elliott in the eye with a sharpened pencil; I counted to twenty.

“I’m just going to go,” Naomi said, as I counted.

Then there was some murmuring—I couldn’t make out what they were saying, although I wasn’t really trying to—and the sound of the door squeaking open and then shut. I opened my eyes. Naomi was gone, but Elliott was still standing there, his hands thrust in his pockets. He was looking at me sadly, brown hair flopping down into his face.

“I really am sorry, Lucy,” he said. “I’m sorry you found out this way. This wasn’t how…well. I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”

I stared at him, as the underlying message sank in. He wasn’t sorry he’d been cheating on me. He was just sorry that I found out.

“I’ll leave your things out on the front porch tonight. If anything is still there in the morning, I’m going to drag it out onto the middle of the lawn, douse it with gasoline, and set fire to it,” I said.

I woke up the next morning on my couch with the worst hangover of my life. The light slanting into the living room through the half-open blinds seemed insanely, painfully bright. My head was simultaneously pounding and spinning, and my tongue felt thick and woolly in my mouth. And what was that smell? I cracked one eye open. Harper Lee was sitting so that her flat black face was about an inch away from mine, staring at me intently. When she saw the signs of life, she leapt into action, squirming with happiness and lunging at me with swipes of her wide pink tongue.

“No, girl,” I said feebly, holding up a hand to ward off the attack. “I can’t take you out now. I’m too busy dying. And no offense, but your breath is rank.”

I’d found the case of warm cheap champagne in the office when I was clearing out Elliott’s things. He kept it to give to clients when they closed on a house. I pulled a bottle out, ripped the black wrapper off, popped the cork, and guzzled it straight from the bottle while I dragged Elliott’s files, clothes, laptop, and even his Nordic Track—which was heavier than it looked, and a bitch to move—out of the house and dumped it all on the front porch.

Part of me resented having to pack his things, but another part of me was glad to have a goal—ridding my house of all things Elliott-related. And between the labor of moving everything and the effect of the too-sweet champagne, the anger that had been buzzing in my ears and causing my hands to shake began to burn off. By the time I was finished, I felt calm enough to decamp to the sofa with the bottle of champagne, which I proceeded to polish off. Harper Lee curled up companionably next to me. She certainly didn’t seem at all upset that Elliott was gone. Maybe she’d always thought he was an asshole too.

The worst of it was that I just felt so
pathetic.
Here I was, at the age of thirty-two, alone again. No, this was even worse than alone, thanks to the humiliation factor. How much longer would it be until I decayed into a sad, lonely old woman with cats and a collection of holiday sweaters? I could picture it with terrifyingly clear detail—an orange vest with embroidered ghosts for Halloween, Santas for Christmas, intertwined hearts for Valentine’s Day. Harper Lee grunted and sighed as she relaxed against me, and I amended the cat part. I’d be a sad old woman with a dog. Maybe I could get Harper Lee a baby carriage and push her up and down the street in it. And then when people would ask to see my baby, they’d look in and see Harper Lee’s sweetly homely face instead and recoil in horror. Might be fun to watch.

This much I knew: This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. The fairy tales never ended with Prince Charming riding off, leaving Sleeping Beauty to fill her days buying porcelain figurines off eBay. No. Loneliness was something that happened to the sad, the misfortunate, the unlucky. I held up the bottle of champagne and toasted the room.

“Here’s to me,” I said, and took another swig of cheap champagne.

I did realize I was wallowing. I thought about calling Maisie, but I knew she’d insist on coming over, and I wanted to be alone. So I just sat there, numbly reviewing the events of the day and wondering how it was possible that when I woke up that morning I hadn’t felt even a hint of premonition about the disaster headed my way. I remember wondering whether there was any tuna salad left in the fridge that I could bring to work for lunch or if Elliott had eaten it the day before. (He had.) And I reminded myself that I had to make an appointment to have my teeth cleaned. (Which, obviously, I forgot to do. Which was probably a good thing. Now that I was unemployed, I couldn’t afford luxuries like dental hygiene.)

And then, as I sat there swilling the champagne, I started to think about money. Which immediately caused the anxiety to roil up in my stomach. I’d taught for ten years, a profession not known for making anyone rich. And even though I’d made a point of adding to my small savings account every month, there wasn’t a lot in it. How much did I have in savings? I tried to remember. Five thousand? Six? No, definitely five. The last repair bill for the Volvo had come to nearly a thousand dollars, and I hadn’t had enough in my checking account to cover it. Which reminded me that I’d have yet another car repair bill to deal with soon, which would shrink my savings account even more. Five thousand dollars. How long would that last? A few months? Maybe a bit longer, if I lived on ramen noodles and boxed macaroni and cheese. And what then? What would I do? What kind of work could I possibly do now that I couldn’t teach? Maybe I could get a job at the bookstore. I spent so much time there, I’d gotten to know the manager. She’d probably hire me. But how much could I possibly make doing that? Minimum wage? It wouldn’t be enough to pay my mortgage.