Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju (Romantic Comedy) (23 page)

She laughed at this. It felt good to laugh, and she felt a
release deep in her belly. “That much is true. But Caleb wasn’t faithful.”

“I thought you decided that maybe he was.”

“That’s before he took Rachael away with him. You know, our
drawing professor. They’ve been doing it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She went with him, on his book promotion thingee.”

“Charlotte, Rachael has been in Tennessee. Her mother lives
alone and fell down the stairs and she’s been helping her get back on her feet.”

“Oh.” Wha? “How do you know that?”

“She just got back. She told us in class, which you missed
to go and find yourself.” He squeezed her hands. “Charlotte. You’ve got to give
this man a break. You are pretty quick to assume, and it’s going to ruin your
marriage.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but he began speaking
first.

“He’s still in love with you. Deeply.”

She shook her head.

Ed opened his messenger bag now and held out an advanced
reading copy of Caleb’s new book. “It’s in black and white,” he said. “I saw
this, in the library, and I cracked it open, and I saw you in there, before I
even started reading it. And, well, it’s something you need to see.”

He had dog-eared the page. The dedication. “To Charlotte,
for, without you, there is no Caleb.”

And then the Acknowledgements page, printed on paper so
white it made her eyes lose focus for a moment.

“I’d like to finally thank my wife. For thirteen years,
my Charlotte has dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s. She has raised our two
daughters into glorious young people. She has been my rock, my guiding star,
and my soft place to fall, with no thought of herself.

“I believe in true love, so I also believe in a true
partnership. For thirteen years, this miraculous woman has pulled me up, and
now I will do the same for her. My next book might be far in the future, for
this new season of life marks my wife’s time to do what she needs to do. And I
will support her always, no matter where this journey takes her. For we are a team,
a body, a unit. And I will never, ever let her go.”

When she looked up from the page, Ed said, “There is no way
I’m getting in the way of that.”  

Charlotte shook her head. “Maybe these are just the words of
a scrambling husband, who has been caught cheating.”

“Or maybe they are just simply true.” He closed his
messenger bag and latched it. “And maybe you should be taking someone else for
coffee and a walk by the river.”

He squeezed her hands then and turned, the hem of his
corduroys dragging on the sidewalk as he moved away from her.

***

Caleb stood by the window, staring out at the aspens, leafy
and green, and the patterns they made on the hillside. The new book tour was
about to begin, so he was packing his office. He had come; he had tried. He had
failed.  The book was out, with the new Acknowledgements page. He had put a
copy in Charlotte’s hands himself, and, still, she wouldn’t return his calls.

He would give up his career for his wife. He had said as
much in the front matter of his book. But she must not care. Or else she didn’t
read his work anymore. Either way, it proved she had moved on.

There she was. Crossing the courtyard below. His breath caught.
What had she done to her hair? But her warmth and that smile. Her quiet charm,
her translucent skin. She was talking to someone now. That man from her class.
They embraced. Now he held her hands. She was looking into his eyes. Now he
handed her something. Christ. Caleb’s heart pounded. He brought his hand up to
pound on the glass. That was
his
wife.
His
Jellybean.

A knock came at his office door. Curt and rapping.

“What?”

It was Rachael. She shoved her way in and threw her hip to
the side. Then she moved toward him, where he was standing at the window,
watching his wife and another man.

He glanced at her, then returned his attention to the scene
below. “What can I do for you?”

She sighed and made a pouty face. “I hear that you are
leaving us.”

Caleb’s heart was thrumming in his head. Ah, okay. The man was
walking away from Charlotte.
Okay. Calm down, Caleb.

Rachael moved closer. Close enough now that he could smell
the spearmint on her breath.

“Yeah,” Caleb said, turning his attention toward her finally
and folding his arms. “My book launch has been moved up, so, I guess there’s
really no choice. But thanks for letting me come and be part of your community
for a while.” He dipped his chin, a gesture he hoped would be interpreted as a
dismissal.

“Well,” she continued, “since you’ll be leaving me, I
figured we had better talk.”

“Talk about what?”

 “About this…attraction we’ve been dancing around.”

Caleb shook his head. “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea,
Rachael. I’m not dancing around anything. I’m a married man.”

“Right. I’ve seen your wife,” she said. “She trains with
this…Leopold. And she flirts—mercilessly—with the men in my class. I mean,
let’s get real here.”

She shoved closer to him, pressing him against the window.
“You asked me to help you get settled in here, and now, just like that, you’re
going to leave?”

The sill shoved into the back of his thighs as he tried to
wriggle back from her. What the hell? She was coming at him. He couldn’t push
her back, could he? She’d go flying. Such a tiny little squirrel she was. But
here she came, with her sharp and bony little face. Then the soapy taste of her
lipstick. Her pinchy mouth on his. Caleb’s eyes burst open in surprise just in
time to see the o-shape of Charlotte’s lips near the door. Then the flip of her
hair, the back of her head. His new book on the floor.

Shit. Again? What had he deposited in the karmic piggy bank
for this to happen,
twice
? He pushed Rachael backward, and he began to
run.

Charlotte didn’t recall descending the three flights of
stairs or leaving the building or passing anyone along the way. It was like when
she had started in the race. Just a blur of colors and then the river, there,
where she had walked with Ed. She bounded down, down toward the willows that
grew at the river’s edge. The willows that would hide her, tuck her away, until
she could decide what to do next. 

She skidded then on a patch of well-worn grass and went
sliding down the hill into the brambles. A thorn tore at her face, and her body
slammed to a stop. A bitter taste rose in her mouth. She was alone. She was
nearly middle-aged. She had nothing to show for it. She was boring and no fun
and she couldn’t even screw around right. She had been turned down. Told to go
back to her husband. Her lying, stupid, rotten…

She had done nothing with her mind or with this life besides
raise her children, and Caleb would have at least partial custody. Hannah and
Gracie would live with a new mom. Maybe a string of other new moms. Moms with
banging bikini bodies and feathery earrings and tight calf muscles. Moms whose
voices didn’t shake when they talked to strangers.

Charlotte bent forward, her head between her knees and then
someone was over her. On her. Pushing into her. And the force of him coming
down the hillside swept her along and pushed her deeper into the thicket by the
water’s edge. Caleb. She turned, then, and she watched as her own fists beat
into his chest.

Caleb locked her forearms. “I didn’t force you to listen before.
But I will force you now. Because I can’t lose you. I can’t. What you saw was
something Rachael did. Not me.”

He loosened his grip, then, and, Charlotte snapped up to a
crawl. She burst onto her feet, but her shoes slipped on the grass once more, and
Caleb tackled her around the waist and held her there.

“Are you done?” he said, finally, once she had stopped
squirming.

“No.” She raised up once again, and he pulled her toward him.
His breath was hot on her face. “Charlotte. I will never let you go.” He held her
by the arms as she wriggled. “Never. Ever.”

She closed her eyes and let the darkness move over her.

“I’m just so glad you’re fighting me,” she heard him say. “When
you walked in and saw me with that Loopy Lisa, back in Missouri, there was no
fight in you. You were just done. Just like that. You were just done with me.
Like you turned off, like you dismissed me…I’d rather you punch me in the face
than do that again. Than ignore me and pretend I didn’t matter. That
we
don’t
matter. That the past thirteen years don’t matter.”

He went on. “All summer, I’ve been trying to get into your
head. I’ve been trying to figure out why you keep jumping to these
conclusions…about me and other women. And I think you must be projecting. You
must be unhappy in our marriage, so you are projecting that unhappiness onto
me. It’s a highly common defense mechanism…”

“Spare me the psychoanalysis,” she sputtered.

“Well, there has to be a reason that you think I’m sleeping
with every woman you see.”

“Not every woman.”

“The waitress at Arturo’s. Your drawing professor. I don’t
know who else.” He cleared his throat.  “Did you really think I was being
unfaithful? Would ever be unfaithful? Or did you just want out?”

The rush of the river and the wind in the trees swallowed
the rest of his words. Or maybe she had stopped listening.

“We can solve it by making you happy. By fixing things. By
fixing us.”

She opened her eyes now, closed them again.

“I don’t think I understood it before, but I do now. If a woman
as powerful and as smart and as…capable as you isn’t allowed to do what she
does…that thing she does…things begin to fester. And then they erupt…Maybe not
in the way you would expect them to. Maybe that’s what this is all about. We
need to get you happy. We need to help you feel more fulfilled. I’ll do
whatever you want. Anything. Just come home.”

She was quiet for a long while, considering. And the river
rushed over the rocks just nearby. She could have poked her foot in there and
felt the rush of the water. If she had slipped into the river then, if the
brambles hadn’t stopped her, where would the water carry her? Where would she
end up?  

When Caleb finally spoke again, his voice was gentle and
soft. “Can we go home now, Charlotte?”

She was still for a time, and then she said, simply, “No.”

He hung his head and pushed his feet into the soil there by
the river. “You are killing me,” was all he said.

***

When Charlotte woke the next morning, the sun once again
sprayed its rays down, down through the skylight and onto the coverlet across
her bed.

No matter what had gone down in a day, the sun would do
this. The more darkness she felt inside, the more it seemed to mock her—the
cobalt of the sky through the glass, making her squint and wink to look up at
it. She lay there, then, remembering the look on Caleb’s face when she had
walked into his office in Missouri. It was the same look he had yesterday with
Rachael. And it wasn’t guilt. It was horror.  

She had used these women as her way of getting out. Of
leaving him. And once she had made this realization in full, once the brunt of
her own near-undoing slammed into her, her lungs clamped shut. She  sucked in a
breath, finally, and a surge of desire nearly carried her away. A desire to
feel Caleb’s arms around her. The scratch of his wool sweater on her cheek. A
desire to experience another of their simple Saturday mornings. Caleb would
make pancakes, each medallion of runny batter fried on a cast iron skillet in
plenty of butter. He had a tendency to turn the heat up too high and the house
would fill with smoke. And so they would open the windows and the doors and the
four of them would eat hot fried pancakes with raspberries and whipped cream
and then sit for hours and talk about Caleb’s latest plot twists or the middle
school dramas the girls had undergone and the sun would bleat into their tiny
breakfast nook and the day would stretch wide in front of them, to spend
together, in quiet and in love. Fiona would have called it boring. But that was
Fiona. Charlotte’s insides twisted. She had nearly given it up. Let it slip
away.

She heard a soft knock then on the door, which she
recognized immediately as Gracie’s. But it was Hannah’s voice, with more than a
hint of alarm. “Mom. Can we talk to you?”

Charlotte sat up and pulled the blankets around her. “Of
course.”

And then the girls came to sit at the foot of her bed, still
in their silky pajamas.

“What time is it?” she asked. 

“Like, 7:30.”

“Oh, wow. I slept in.”

“Yeah. And Dad left.”

“What do you mean ‘Dad left?’ Was he here?”

“He must have been. Early. But his plane leaves today. And
he left without saying goodbye.” Hannah bit on the inside of her lip. “This was
on the table.”

Hannah held a manila envelope with Charlotte’s name in bold
black Sharpie. Ugh. She was growing to dislike these sealed and labeled
packages.  

Gracie’s forehead was wrinkled. “What are we going to do, Mom?”

How could Charlotte tell her daughters that it had all been
a dreadful mistake? That the reason she had left their father was because of
her own insecurities, her own sadness, and nothing he had done at all. How
could she explain the adult world she was only just beginning to know and
understand: the world of mistakes, of layering, of forgiveness.

Charlotte shook her head because she didn’t know what else
to do, and she opened the envelope.

“Should we go, Mom? Should we leave now?”

“No, no stay,” Charlotte replied. She had been secretive
enough with her girls. Charlotte rifled through the contents, and then looked
up at them.

“You’re going to need to start packing,” she said.

Gracie and Hannah looked to her, then to one another.

“Because we leave for New York City tomorrow.” She held out
the stack of airline tickets, the VIP passes to Caleb’s launch party, a printed
email from his publicist with the family’s travel arrangements and hotel
details. And a purple post-it note on top showing Caleb’s familiar scrawl. “I
hope to hell you’ll use these.”

***

Charlotte stepped out of the shower and stood in the steam
to dry off. She looked first at her legs and then her arms. Her weight hadn’t
changed much, nor her overall size. She was still a solid, formidable person,
but she could see definition and strength. She cleared the mirror with her
towel and stood staring at herself. The skin just around her eyes was crinkly. There
were freckles here and there on her face and some lines and more than one stray
hair. But this was the face she inhabited, so she fixed on it a bit longer. She
moved up close to the mirror and she stared into her own eyes, and then she
pulled back and considered her breasts, and she raised her arms now, and she
flexed, popping forth a mound of muscle, which hadn’t been there when she
arrived in this town. She looked down at her legs, and she tightened her quads.
They were strong now, strong enough to bound over the trails of central
Missouri. She was strong enough to feel the wind flip through her hair; to be
out of breath, but not wheezy. She had become a runner this summer, and, for
that, she was grateful.

She had rescheduled her final workout with Leopold, so she
could luxuriate in the time slot she had always wanted, smack in the middle of
the day. She pulled on her race jersey, and she went to meet him.

***

When she arrived, Leopold was finishing up with Helga, who
regarded Charlotte with a slow, sideways glance and then a practiced smile.

“Hello. It’s Charlotte, isn’t it? Fiona’s sister?”

“Yes, yes.” Charlotte smiled and took Helga’s hand in hers.  

“I understand you also work for our Tabitha.”

“
Worked
for your Tabitha.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, there are some problems there, at her preschool. As
I’m sure you are aware.”

“Whatever do you mean, dear?”

And so she told Helga the entire series of sordid tales…
that of the fireplay, the Sominex, the Children of the Corn, sequestered as
they were, in that tiny room.   

When she was finished, Helga moved her hand away from her
mouth. “Are you quite sure about all of this?”

“Quite.”

Helga shot a look toward Leopold, who gave her a quick nod.

“I will address this. Today.” And she turned to leave.

So, Charlotte thought, the uncool kid just told the cool
kid’s mommy on her. But that’s what uncool kids do, and sometimes it takes a
little tattle to make a difference.

“Do not worry,” Leopold said. “This preschool you speak of will
be sold or burned to the ground by tomorrow. Helga is a tough…how you say? Broad.
A tough broad. This is correct, no?”

“This is correct. At least I hope it is, Leopold, for the
sake of the children in this town. And if it’s not, I’ll talk to the licensing
board.”

So began their workout. Charlotte could tell Leopold was
going easy on her, but she didn’t mind.

“I’m going to miss you, Miss Charlotte,” he said, as they
rounded the track toward the end of the session. “And so is your sister. But
I’m glad you are working things out with the author. Still, you know if he ever
pulls any more funny business, you can come right back here.”

“Thanks, Leopold.”

 “You were one of my best success stories, you know that?
You and Fiona both. Though, of course, Fiona is still working.”

“Fiona still needs a… confidence coach?”

“Yes, I mean, she has just the life she needs now. But all
of that loneliness.”  

“She has her kids, and she has her husband.”

“Yes,” he said, “Have you ever met him?”

“No. Have you?”

“Oh yes. He owns most of the property downtown. He was in
town all the time when Fiona started dating him. She was working as a hostess
at Arturo’s, as a matter of fact, when she and I were first working together.”

“In the gym? Is that where you and Fiona were working
together?”

“Of course. Where else?”

“Just… go on.”

“Mr. Amari, he saw her and he had to have her. At least that
is how he phrased it to me. And so he made a few changes to her.”

“What does that mean?”

“He…how do you say? He…
remade
her in the way he
wished to. Her body and such. And then he bought her a house, with the stipulation
that she would be there absolutely whenever he wanted her to be.”

“Oh. Wow. And how often does he come by?”  

“I don’t know. During his ski trips. Usually February, I
think.”

“Once a year?”

“Yes, but he stays for a few weeks. And he is still working
on some property development, some real estate deals, so he comes through town
to oversee that, though I’m not sure she always knows when he comes into town.”
He brought his finger to his lips.

“But what about his kids?”

“Between you and me, Miss Charlotte, I think Mr. Amari has
many children. And it breaks Fiona’s heart that he does not have much to do
with Maddox and Maxwell.”

 “But they are married?”

“Sure. I think that was part of the deal, too. Also that she
maintains a certain…how do you say? A certain
appearance
when he
arrives.”

“Oh. Well.”

“Charlotte.” His voice grew soft. “Please don’t ever tell
Fiona that I told you all of this. I don’t think she would want you to know.”

“I don’t think she would mind.”

“She
would
mind. As her Confidence Coach, she has
told me all about the sister who has beaten her at everything. About your
perfect life, your perfect family, your perfect marriage. She would never want
you to know that she is not perfect, too.”

“Sure. Yeah, I won’t mention anything.” And she thought then
how she had shown Fiona the tickets that morning and told her that they were
going to be leaving early, and Fiona had stomped her foot and crossed her arms,
and said, “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s playing you for a fool.”