The Husband Diet, page 8
But more than anything, I remember how he’d calmed me with his deep, soothing voice and how it had enveloped me, warmed me, like a father’s should when you’re a scared child or a husband’s when you’re a woman down in the dumps. I’d never had either source of comfort in my life from my dad or Ira, and it was like the other shoe had finally dropped. This voice, this presence, this kind of man was what I’d lacked my entire life. If I’d had this kind of solid support and understanding all that time, and not for just a few terrifying seconds in the ladies’ room, my whole life would have been made. I’d be a different woman today. Sweeter. More self-assured. Less aggressive. More loved.
This was the kind of patience and loyalty that I’d sorely lacked. Someone who would believe me and act upon my fears as if they were as important to him as they were to me. This man had taken me seriously. This man had been my security. If Ira had been here with me, never in a thousand years would he have agreed to rip my pants off in public, just like that.
The stranger put his lips against my ear and whispered, ‘It’s alright. It’s gone. Calm down now.’
‘Are you sure?’ I croaked, burying my head deeper into his chest, my arms and legs still wrapped around him like a real whack job.
‘Absolutely positive. Take a look for yourself – see?’
I stopped and lifted my face to scan the floor with trepidation. He was right. No sign of the thing. The coast was clear. And then I finally looked up at him. And almost fainted dead away again, but for another reason this time.
He was surreal. Handsome didn’t even begin to cut it. Wide shoulders. Muscles. Strong. Perhaps enough to lift me. Black hair that fell over his forehead. Big dark eyes and the most awesome, longest lashes. Dark five o’clock shadow. Pure man. Pure, sinfully gorgeous man.
‘Hands up!’ twin voices echoed in the empty bathroom.
My savior turned toward them and raised his hands, his torso still stuck to mine so that he looked like he was doing sit-ups against my breasts.
‘It’s OK, lads. It’s only me,’ he assured them. Then he turned to me. ‘I’m a regular here.’
One of the guards re-holstered his gun. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘It’s fine. A little accident with a big hairy monster,’ he explained, tucking his shirt back into his jeans as the two guards looked at me.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and shot them an evil glare. ‘He means the spider.’
One of the guards stifled a snort and I shakily crawled away, making a break for my pants, which were now in shreds, much too humbled to look my savior’s way. It was a good thing that Paul always waxed the hell out of me, otherwise the guards would have thought the poor man was tackling a grizzly bear in the ladies’ room.
‘Oh, OK,’ agreed the other guard all too easily.
I hid my face in my torn pants. ‘He was just helping out a hysterical lady,’ I contributed, not wanting to seem ungrateful. ‘Go now, please. I’m in my underwear, in case you hadn’t noticed.’ And they weren’t my best pair, either.
At that, my savior chuckled and wrapped his jacket around me like a kilt. I’m big, but this thing fit all the way around me. My face still hidden, I muttered a muffled ‘Thank you,’ and skulked back into the stall – a different one, though.
‘OK, let’s give the lady some breathing space,’ I heard my hero say. ‘I’ll be sitting outside if you’d care to join me for lunch?’
‘Uh, I don’t know. Thanks anyway.’
A pause. ‘OK, then. I hope to see you again soon.’
Yeah, like that was ever happening. ‘Me too. Thank you.’
‘We’re at our desk if you need us, ma’am,’ called one of the guards.
‘Alright. Thank you. And thank you again,’ I called to my hero from over the stall, too embarrassed to show my face.
‘My pleasure,’ he said in a charming British accent.
I raced home wearing the guy’s jacket around my hips, shot up the stairs past the aghast babysitter, who must have thought I was a freak, and hopped back down the stairs, one leg in a new pair of jeans. By the time I reached the front door, I was dressed. When you’re a working mom, you learn to multitask quickly.
‘I’ll pay you the extra time!’ I shouted over my shoulder as I catapulted myself out the door and into my Kia, flooring it. No wonder I always got speeding tickets.
Paul was sitting up brightly in bed as if he’d just had a groovy haircut instead of breaking his leg.
‘Hey, sunshine, what’s up?’ he chirped as I kissed his cheek and sank down, winded, in the chair next to his bed, his overnight bag at my feet.
‘Are you alright?’ I asked in a ragged breath. ‘How did it happen?’
Paul shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. It’s not broken, just badly sprained. A sex accident. Carl and I slipped in his shower this morning.’
I raised my eyebrow. I’d never had sex in the shower in my life. Just ordinary bed sex, while it lasted. I wondered if Paul could sense my envy.
He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and said, ‘No, Erica, you’ll never have sex in the shower until you find yourself a new man.’
I stared at him. He was right. Not only was I not having sex in the shower, but I also wasn’t having any sex at all.
‘You look more frazzled than usual,’ he observed. ‘What’s up?’
It took a minute to sink in as my mind was still focused on the steamy showers I’d never had, and then it dawned on me. ‘Paulie, I’ve just met the man of my dreams.’
Paul nearly jumped out of bed, but his elastic cast stopped him. He slapped his hands together, his eyes mischievous and excited. ‘You’re kidding me! What’s his name?’
I stared at him blankly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, what does he do?’
I thought about it, but could only remember the sensation of pure protector, like in the romance paperbacks I used to sneak behind my chemistry books. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? Can you at least describe him?’
Before his overwhelming beauty, the sensation of manliness and kindness came to mind. ‘Tall. Dark. Soft, loose black curls A deep, soothing voice. Big hands. Lean body but strong.’
‘Oh, great, that’ll help. You’ve just described half the male Boston population. The gay one, mostly!’
I shrugged helplessly.
‘Well, how did you meet him? Tell!’ Paul urged, getting as comfortable as he could, considering he was anchored to the bed.
But I was already back on Earth, anchored and grounded to my own reality. Hell, I had kids and already one failed marriage. I couldn’t afford to fantasize about the first hunk who tore my clothes off.
‘It doesn’t matter. I met him. And I’ll never see him again. That’s why he’ll always be the man of my dreams.’
Paul’s eyes popped out of his face. ‘You didn’t get his number? Have I taught you absolutely nothing?’
I shrugged again. All I knew was that he’d enveloped me in such a way, making me feel protected and not silly for my fears. He’d taken control of the situation, but not so I’d feel like an idiot, which I should have. But he’d been understanding, not judgmental. If I’d been single, and younger, and beautiful, and confident, I’d have found a way to meet him again, even if I had to canvass every door in Massachusetts.
Maybe somewhere in this city at this very moment, a woman was opening her front door to him, arms wide, and I envied her. I’d never know his name. But I did have his jacket to remember him by. Or, if I were my sister, Judy, I’d track him down and bump into him ‘by chance’. He’d be charming, protective, kind, passionate – a real alpha male like you see in romance books. He’d be practically perfect. And then, like Ira, he’d get sick of me, start sleeping with someone else and break my heart.
For years, as I was growing up, I’d longed for the dates, the first kiss, the first time, the ‘oh my God, my period is late’. All the things I’d seen in my friends’ lives. The works. But of course then, there was no danger I’d ever get pregnant unless someone up there took pity on me and sent me the Archangel Gabriel on a mission.
Some of us aren’t destined to find love. I’d missed my love boat. But at least I had two children I loved to pieces, Paul, a great job and a lovely house. The rest, well, maybe in my next life.
10
Home Truths
The first thing I did when I woke the next morning was sneeze. My throat itched and my nose was dripping. Shit. I couldn’t afford to get sick. I dragged my butt out of bed and took a hot shower to chase away the microbes and I was fine – until I stepped out of the shower. I don’t know how I managed to get dressed, because my head was so heavy and my bones screamed in pain at every movement.
Shivering, I opened my wardrobe and winced. I’d forgotten to pick up my work suits at the dry-cleaners. All I had in the house were some sundresses I hadn’t worn since before I’d got pregnant with Maddy and some jeans from before I met Ira. Apart from the pants that hunk had torn off me, my only other good jeans were in the wash. None of those fitted, so it was either one of my old track suits or a brown suit that consisted of a wool dress and matching coat that never fit me. And even if it did, it would made me look like a sack of turnips. Marcy had brought it back from France and I’d hated it on sight but never had the courage to throw it away. Why? you may ask.
Because Marcy (who has the key to our place) systematically goes through my closet to throw out things she says are absolutely horrid and that I shouldn’t be caught dead wearing. Can you imagine that? Needless to say that she got rid of more than two thirds of my closet in one visit. At first I was shocked. Then I was angry. Then I was resigned. My mother would never do that, you may be saying out loud while shaking your head, but come on, don’t you know Marcy yet? Don’t you know that couture is more important than nurturing your own children?
We were practically specular. Where she was hopeless, like cooking and nurturing, I shone. Where she was polished, like social events, couture and beauty, I was grubby and careless.
Anyway, back to the sack-of-potatoes suit I swore I’d never wear even if I did lose weight. One lesson I’d learned was never say never. I took a step closer. It was my only solution right now. Did I smell mothballs? Yep, another contribution from Marcy. But I had no choice but to see if it fit. If it did, I was home free. If it didn’t, it really was going to have to be my track suit. Maybe if I kept to my office all day, no one would notice.
I begrudgingly bunched the suit up at the hem and slowly – slowly – pulled it over my head. Shoulders clear – that was a first! Oh, God, was it coming to a halt around my waist? No, it was just the lining scrunching, thank goodness. I tugged on it as delicately but firmly as I could, as if this dress were made of paper and the very last one on Earth. After this it was the proverbial fig leaf. How Marcy hadn’t foreseen that this suit wouldn’t fit me had been a mystery to me for many years until one day, while scoffing at it, resenting its mere presence in my home, it dawned on me that she’d done it on purpose. To give me a goal in my life. As if wearing this dead ringer for a burlap sack was going to inspire me to lose weight.
At my hips there was a definite stalemate situation. It wasn’t going down any further! Panicking, I eyed my track suit and then my flowery summer dresses, and with a grunt, coaxed the suit (the wool stretched easily enough, but it was the damn lining that seemed made for a five-year-old) over my curves. All the while holding my breath.
And yes! Mission accomplished! Here we were, as one, this horrid piece of couture and me. And I’d never been this elated before, not even in my wedding dress. I’d finally proved Marcy wrong.
Admiring the way it didn’t cling, squeeze or underline anything, I added a shiny burnt-copper beigey-green silk scarf that changed color under the light. I had to compensate somehow for the lack of make-up. There was no way I could wear mascara with these watery eyes today and not look like the actor Brandon Lee in The Crow. Besides, I could hardly keep them open. All I wanted to do was crawl back into my nice warm, comfy bed and sleep until Christmas. Or even better, next summer, by which time the divorce would no longer be a novelty to the kids.
I made it to work in record time and, way ahead of my schedule, I plunked myself down into my amazingly comfortable Star Trekkie swivel armchair behind my desk, ready to take on the day. If you’re a working mom, you know how difficult it is to balance things. If you’re a single working mom, I know exactly how you feel, doing everything on your own without a man at your side. My assistant, Jackie, poked her head round my office door. The look on her face wasn’t good.
‘Uh, Erica? We have a teensy-weensy problem.’
I sighed. ‘Just give it to me straight.’
‘There’s a… um… flood on the third floor.’
‘A flood,’ I repeated calmly, as if she were talking about some remote, overpopulated and underfed village in some Third World country that I could sympathize with but do absolutely nothing about.
‘And it’s leaking onto the second.’
‘Did you see where it’s coming from?’ I sighed at the blank look on her face. ‘Never mind – I’ll do it.’
Jackie was amazingly good with people, but she was a disaster with disasters. Me, I was good with disasters – and people with whom I didn’t share a surname.
It was the boiler system. It had sprung a major leak, and there was nothing I could do but call the maintenance team and invite the guests on both affected floors to an improvised mid-afternoon buffet and drinks. In the meantime the in-house laundry service took care of transferring their sodden clothing to be dry-cleaned or washed and pressed, and we upgraded them all to a superior room. On top of that, I threw in a voucher for a two-night stay in any Farthington Hotel in North America, all compliments of the management. By the time I’d finished my reparatory spiel, I’d charmed the pants off them (their only dry pair) and the incident was forgotten. That was my job and I was amazing at it.
And motherhood? I did my damned best. The kids were always fed and read to and everything (well, not quite everything, but at least the most important things) that was natural for a woman to do for her family. I grimly pictured the list of women’s chores and compared them to men’s. Bit of a chasm there, not to say the entire Grand Canyon.
So, faced with the fact that I’d never be able to check mark all those chores, I did what I’d normally do at work. Prioritize. What was more important – cleaning my windows or helping my kids with their homework? To iron bed sheets, which no one ever sees anyway, or learn to play baseball with Warren – even if it meant knocking myself out and seeing stars in the process – and take Maddy to ballet classes? No contest.
And gosh, the look in their eyes whenever I dropped my vacuum cleaner and sat down to color? Much to Ira’s annoyance, of course, because he always thought I did it to show him up, to underline the difference between mommy and daddy. He never understood it wasn’t about him. He never understood it was simply about making the kids feel loved, about them coming first – before Sunday brunches, before our own hobbies.
I once had a passion for painting and had been told I was good at it, too. But I hadn’t painted a landscape in years, though my fingers yearned to. Every time I saw a beautiful view or closed my eyes, I could see a million things I wanted to paint, could feel a million colors exploding within me, dying to get out. But I settled for coloring and making paper dolls with Maddy.
Ira, on the other hand, sometimes, if at all, paid attention to them the first half-hour he was home, but then lost interest. He was totally unaware of anybody else’s needs and he’d slowly worsened over the years. A bit like my mom, in a way. These people lacked the sensitivity gene. They didn’t realize what was going on around them or if someone, friend or family, was suffering. They’d never really loved, in my opinion. Never sat up all night worried about someone (Nonna Silvia had told me I was never sick as a baby, so I guess that was my mom’s cue to take life easy).
As a child, every time I woke in the middle of the night with a nightmare, it was always, always my nonna who came to my bed with a glass of water, a chat and finally a good night hug. She was the only one who ever kissed me and said, ‘Sleep well, sweetheart.’
Sleep well, sweetheart. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had said that to me.
A few confused, phlegmy and foggy hours later during lunch, as I was writing a list of all the bad words I knew in Italian, like bastardo and stronzo, and linking them to Ira’s name in a sort of spider-gram, I got a personal call from Mr. Foxham, the kids’ new school principal.
Shit. He’d sent out a letter to the families with a new mission statement against the spreading phenomenon of bullying and what his main goals were, inviting us in to discuss whether or not our children felt safe, were happy, etcetera. I’d forgotten to RSVP that party.
And so, clutching the phone, I feared the worst, conjuring images of Warren hanging from the strip lights or the ceiling beams by his tie, courtesy of an older kid, or Madeleine’s dress being torn to pieces by a posse of vicious girls kicking her and her pretty pink raincoat and matching boots around in the mud.
‘Good morning, Mrs. Lowenstein,’ came the voice of doom, calling me by a name that was no longer mine. ‘I’m Mr. Foxham, Madeleine and Warren’s principal.’
This wasn’t going to be pleasant. Memories of my homeroom teacher, Miss Briton (who was actually Australian), talking down to me in her crisp accent, surfaced and in a single moment, I relived the worst years of my school life.
I felt my own diction tighten accordingly. ‘Yes, good morning, Mr. Foxham. Is there a problem?’
A pause. Oh, that deadly pause where I saw at least one of my kids lying lifeless…
