Ladies' Night (3 page)

“Fix it?” Grace exploded with pure, white-hot rage.

“Fix it,” she said, lifting her voice to the heavens. “He’s been screwing her for a while now, and he thinks we can fix it.”

“That’s it,” Ben said. “I won’t stand here and let you humiliate me like this.”

“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” Grace called.

“I’m gone,” Ben said. True to his word, he stalked away toward the house.

She raced to the back door, to discover that he’d locked her out.

“Let me in, damn it,” she screamed, pounding on the kitchen door.

Nothing. She kicked the door. Still nothing.

She looked around for something, anything, to break the glass in the door. Just then she spied the heap of clothing J’Aimee had discarded in her hasty escape.

Grace scooped up the clothes and returned to the back patio. She craned her neck in the direction of the hibiscus hedge, hoping she might spot J’Aimee’s bony white ass back there, hiding in the foliage or, better yet, being gnawed on by the neighbor’s dog, a vicious-tempered chow mix named Peaches. But nothing moved in the shrubbery.

She had an idea. She stepped onto the patio and found the light switch for the outdoor kitchen, with its granite counters and six-burner gas-fired barbecue.

Earlier in May, her Gracenotes blog had dealt with barbecues.

Mr. Grace and I are fortunate to live in Florida, where grilling season never ends. But just because we’re dining outdoors doesn’t mean I serve burnt hot dogs on spindly white paper plates. I love to spread a white matelassé bedspread diagonally across our glass-topped patio table and anchor it with a pair of heavy black wrought-iron candelabras, or, if it’s a windy day, I’ll place votive candles in old Mason jars anchored with a layer of bleached-out seashells. Especially for casual occasions like this, you do not have to have a set of matched plastic dishes. I’ll let you in on a secret: I hate matchy-matchy! Instead, I have an assortment of mismatched Fiestaware plates picked up at junk shops and yard sales over the years, in bold shades of turquoise, green, pink, yellow, and orange. Paired with silverware with ivory-colored Bakelite handles, and oversized plain white flour-sack dish towels bought cheap from Ikea, and a bouquet of brilliant zinnias cut from the garden, they telegraph the message to guests: the fun is about to begin!

Speaking of fun, Grace chortled as she tossed J’Aimee’s clothes—a T-shirt, pair of shorts, bra, and pink thong panties—onto the counter and then reached into the stainless steel bar fridge and found herself a perfectly chilled bottle of Corona. She didn’t really like beer all that much, and there were no lime slices handy, but she’d just have to make do. She uncapped the bottle and took a long, deep swig, and then another. She pushed the
IGNITE
button on the front burner and the blue flame came on with a satisfying whoosh.

The beer wasn’t bad at all. She took another sip and tossed the panties onto the burner. The tiny scrap of synthetic silk went up in flames and was gone in a second or two, which was a disappointment. The shorts made a nicer display, and she watched the blaze for two or three minutes, reluctantly adding the T-shirt and then, after another five minutes, the bra. The bra, which had heavy padding, smoldered for several minutes, sending up a stinky black fog of smoke.

She looked around for something else to add to the fire, and remembered Ben’s shirt, still draped over the windshield of his Audi.

Ben loved expensive things. But Grace, raised above her parent’s working-class bar in the nearby fishing hamlet of Cortez, could never quite get comfortable with the luxury goods that her husband had grown up with as the pampered only son of a Miami bank executive. The day she’d bought the shirt at Neiman-Marcus, for $350, she’d walked away from it twice, finally forcing herself to pull the trigger and buy the damned thing.

Grace stood in the open doorway of the garage, scowling at the Audi. If the shirt was Ben’s favorite, the Audi, a 2013 Spyder R8 convertible, was beyond his favorite. It was his obsession. He’d bought the Audi without consulting Grace, right after they signed the pilot deal with HGTV. Ben wouldn’t disclose what he’d paid for the car, saying only that he’d “worked a deal” on it, but when she checked the prices online, she’d discovered that the thing retailed for $175,000! She’d somehow managed to swallow her resentment over not being included in the decision to buy the new car, telling herself that if Ben, who handled all the family finances, thought they could afford the car, then she shouldn’t worry.

She walked around to the driver’s side, snatching the shirt off the windshield. Looking down, she noticed the keys were still in the ignition.

The next thing she knew, she was using the shirt to wipe down the bucket seat’s leather upholstery—just in case. She slid beneath the wheel and turned the key in the ignition, smiling as the powerful engine roared to life.

Ben didn’t exactly prohibit her from driving the Audi, but he didn’t encourage it either, telling her it was “a lot of car” for a woman and pointing out that her experience driving a stick shift was limited, although she’d learned to drive on her father’s beat-up manual-transmission Chevy pickup.

Maybe, Grace thought, she’d just take the Audi for a spin around the neighborhood. Wouldn’t that just fire Ben’s rockets? She hoped he was watching from one of the upstairs windows. He’d have a stroke when he saw her behind the wheel. She eased the car into reverse, carefully backing it out of the garage.

Maneuvering an expert three-point turn, she was about to head down the driveway when the kitchen door flew open.

“Grace!” Ben yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going for a drive,” she said cheerfully, raising the Corona in a jaunty salute.

“The hell you are,” he barked, walking toward her. “You’ve been drinking and you’re in no shape to be driving. Get out of my car.”

“Your car?” she raised an eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “You’ve had your fun. This is taking things too far.”

Too far? Grace revved the Audi’s engine and slammed the car in first, screeching past Ben, who was a shouting, raving blur. Now she was at the edge of the patio, knocking over chaise lounges and the wrought-iron table with its jaunty green umbrella. The limpid turquoise surface of the pool was straight ahead. She closed her eyes, held her nose, and stomped the accelerator. The shock of the water was a final reminder. This was no nightmare. She was awake.

2

Grace had grown up living above a marina, but she was only an okay swimmer. Still, she could dog-paddle and manage a serviceable backstroke when the occasion demanded. The shock of the cold water disoriented her momentarily, but seconds later she managed to kick herself free of the Audi and power up to the surface, blinking and gasping for air.

As soon as she surfaced, the enormity of what she’d just done came crashing down. She pushed her hair from her eyes and saw Ben, standing at the side of the pool, staring down at her, wild-eyed and more agitated than she’d ever seen him. “Jesus, Grace!” he shouted. “My car! What have you done to my car?”

He wasn’t alone. A uniformed police officer stood at his side, training a large flashlight over the pool. Grace wished she could dive back down to the bottom, maybe hide in the Audi’s trunk. Just until things got a little less crazy.

“Ma’am?” The cop was young, with close-shorn hair and a look of concern that was noticeably absent from her husband’s face. “Are you all right?”

Grace coughed and brushed a strand of hair from her face, dog-paddling to stay afloat. “I’m all right,” she said cautiously, flexing her toes and examining her hands just to make sure. Not a scratch, she thought, which pleased her. After all, she was homicidal, not suicidal.

“You’re not all right,” Ben snapped. “You’re fuckin’ nuts.”

“Ma’am, could you come out of the water now?” the cop asked.

Grace looked around the backyard. “Where’s the slut?” she called.

The cop looked confused. “Who?”

“J’Aimee. The slut. I’m not coming out if she’s still here.”

“Who’s Jamie?”

Grace jutted her chin in Ben’s direction. “Ask him.” Her legs were getting a little weary from all the dog-paddling, so she floated onto her back and stared up at the sky. It was a gorgeous evening. The clouds had cleared, and the stars sprinkled in the deep blue heavens looked so close she felt she might just reach out and pluck one. It was too bad she couldn’t just float here for a long time, enjoying this view.

“Sir?” she heard the cop say.

“It’s not Jamie, it’s J’Aimee,” Ben said. “And she’s our assistant. The woman my wife assaulted earlier this evening. Grace chased her off. I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“Our assistant?” Grace said. “I thought she was my assistant. Of course, that was before I found her assisting you earlier this evening.” She turned to face the cop. “I caught them, doing it, right there in the garage. In the front seat of the Audi. So you see why I want to make sure she’s gone, can’t you?”

The cop was blushing now, which made him look even younger. He coughed and crossed his arms and looked over at Ben. “Is that correct?”

“No, it’s not correct,” Ben said. “My wife thinks she saw something she didn’t, and now she’s blown everything completely out of proportion.”

“Blown!” Grace called, her legs pumping underwater, her voice abnormally gleeful. “You got that right, buddy. Only I wasn’t the one doing the blowing, was I?”

“You’re disgusting,” Ben said. He turned to the cop. “She’s been drinking, obviously.”

The cop gave Grace a stern look. “Ma’am, have you been drinking?”

“I had half a beer,” Grace said. “You want me to take a Breathalyzer? Want to draw some blood?” She held her arm above water, as though he might tap a vein right there and then.

While he was considering that, the radio clipped to his shoulder began to crackle. He turned his back to her, spoke into it briefly and then turned around again.

“I think you need to come out of that pool now,” he told Grace. He turned to Ben. “You told the dispatcher you were afraid she might get hurt. Or hurt somebody else. Are you still concerned about that?”

Ben shrugged. “I suppose not.”

“What about you?” the cop asked Grace. “Did your husband strike you, or threaten to harm you in any way?”

“Not really,” Grace admitted.

“What about this J’Aimee person? Do I need to get a statement from her?”

Grace swam to the shallow end of the pool and pulled herself up on the coral rock patio. The May night was warm, but she shivered as the water streamed off her body.

Ben’s voice was low. “That won’t be necessary.”

“I want to get a statement from her,” Grace called, standing up. She pointed toward the hibiscus hedge. “She went that-a-way.”

Her teeth were chattering and she hugged her arms around her torso. “Excuse me,” she told the cop. “I’m just going to get a towel to dry off.”

Grace found a thick yellow and green striped beach towel in the cabinet at the edge of the patio and wrapped it around herself. She took another towel and wound it around her head, turban-style. Suddenly, her legs felt weak. She sat, abruptly, on the edge of the only chaise lounge she hadn’t mowed down on her way to the pool.

The young police officer looked down at her with an expression of unspeakable pity. “Are you sure you’re all right? You didn’t hit your head or anything?”

“My head is fine,” Grace said, tears springing to her eyes. She couldn’t say the same of her heart. Her chest felt like it might explode.

“What happens now?” Ben said, his voice gruff. He was standing ten yards away, keeping his distance so her craziness didn’t rub off.

“Unless one of you wants to file a complaint, nothing happens,” the cop said. “I’d suggest you take your wife inside and get her some dry clothes.”

“She can get her own clothes,” Ben said.

“Also, considering the, um, circumstances, I think it would be best if you did not both spend the rest of the night here,” the cop went on. He looked over at Ben. “Maybe you could call a friend? Or get a motel room?”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Ben said, outraged. “This is my home.” He looked over at Grace. “Besides, I can’t exactly leave, since my car is currently resting on the bottom of the pool.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going,” Grace said, struggling to her feet. She glanced in the direction of the house. She could see the lights she’d left on in their bedroom, and the kitchen light, too. The house looked enormous, like something she’d seen in a magazine layout. Or a real estate ad. It didn’t look real to her. Not like a home. Nothing like a home.

The cop looked from Ben to Grace. His radio crackled again. “Are we done here?”

“We’re done,” Grace said wearily.

Ben stomped off in the direction of the house. A moment later, he switched off the exterior lights, throwing the yard into sudden darkness. The cop gave a nervous cough, but he didn’t leave. He switched on his flashlight, but held it down at his side.

“Um,” he said, and she could see that he was blushing again.

“I swear, I’m not going to do anything violent,” Grace said. “I’d just like to tell you that, for whatever it’s worth, I’m really a very normal, peace-loving person. I’ve never, ever done anything like this before.”

She peered at his face, to see if he believed her.

“Look,” he said hesitantly. “I didn’t want to say this in front of your husband. But I’m a big fan of your blog.”

“You read Gracenotes?” Grace wasn’t sure if she should be embarrassed or flattered. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. I even subscribe. My girlfriend and I just moved in together, and we’re fixing up our place, and we both really enjoy Gracenotes. Next weekend, we’re even going to paint our bathroom ceiling the same color you painted your powder room.”

“Waterfall? That is so sweet!”

“Well, we’re going to cut the strength fifty percent, like you suggested in your blog,” he said. “But Amy, that’s my girlfriend, she’s already painted the walls Cloud Cover. How do you think that will look?”

“It’ll be great,” Grace assured him. “That’s one of my favorite whites. And Benjamin Moore is an excellent paint. I use it all the time.”