All That Was Happy (10 page)

“
Can I wear this on a first date?”
Beckie said. “We’re going out to the Valley to a hole-in-the wall
for some Mexican food. Don’t you think it’s a little too much for
that?”

“
You’ve gone and done your hair,”
Virginia said. “You’ve started the ball rolling--you might as well
go all the way and see where it leads you--you’re starting a new
life. No sense making it exactly like the old one.”

“
You’re right,” Beckie said. “Besides,
this may be my last night out for awhile. After I kill my husband,
I’m sure the police will want to detain me--I may even wind up
sitting in jail for a year and playing on the Internet like O.J.
did.”

“
You keep talking about killing your
husband as if you’re really going to do it,” Virginia
said.

Beckie reached into the straw purse and
pulled out the gun.

“
Each cylinder is filled with a
half-jacketed 180-grain hollowpoint bullet,” Beckie said. “The kind
of bullet that makes a small punch-hole going in, expands to the
size of a fifty-cent piece once inside, and takes a bowl of chili
with it going out.”

Virginia stood very still, very quiet, a few
shades paler.

“
I’m sorry,” Beckie said, putting the
gun away. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“
That’s okay,” Virginia said. “Forget
about it.”

“
Everything these days is about
boundaries,” Beckie said. “Everybody always wants to know who’s
responsible for what, and how everything is going to be done. When
my husband walked out on me, I realized I didn’t have the strength
to spend the rest of my life wrestling with him over all the issues
surrounding the disposition of the business we’d created together.
I didn’t have the strength to watch him with the child he’s having
with his secretary. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle
it--so tomorrow, I’m going let my gun decide everything for both of
us.”

“
We’d better decide on some shoes,”
Virginia said. “Do you like these silver platform
wedgies?”

Chapter
17

“
There’s no law that says being loved
is an absolute necessity for being happy,” Leah said.

“
I’m not sure what love is, anyway,”
Beckie replied. “Is it something real, or something
imaginary?”

At midpoint in their dinner, Beckie,
Huntington, Leah, and Ira were halfway through the second round of
Gold Margaritas, the first round of potent golden slush having
already been quickly sucked down to quell the fires from the
homemade, freshly toasted tortilla chips dipped in a fresh, peppery
salsa that convinced the tongue it had just been pressed onto the
surface of Hell. They’d all met at the hole-in-the-wall, Taxco
Mexican Restaurant, which, although in the middle of what many
considered a culture-free zone, that is to say, conditions
surrounding the Van Nuys restaurant rivaled that of the worst slums
of Bogota--served what was possibly the best Mexican food in the
city, if such a thing could be said to exist, and had served it for
the better part of thirty years without changing the menu a
whit.

Huntington, it being his first time to visit
the joint, initially approached his plate as though it might be
exceedingly poisonous, but after a first, tentative bite, proceeded
to quickly make a good job of consuming with gusto the savory,
gravy-soaked platter of chili rellenos, plated alongside a greasy,
dripping taco lying atop a lake of mashed beans soaking in melted
cheese, the entire affair topped off with a hot tamale such as
could be normally found only in places south of the border where
the girth of a man was still a measure of his importance. At Taxco,
lard ruled, and lard, in spite of the bad press it received from
the Richard Simmons crowd, was mighty tasty stuff.

“
I think love is real,” Huntington said
to Beckie. “But that doesn’t mean it’s good. What gets me is why
people assume that love, once they get hold of it, will fix all
their problems.”

“
I think love can run up quite a tab,”
Beckie said. “And sometimes, when the bill comes due, we find out
we don’t have the resources to pay it. When Bernie had me served
yesterday, that was the bill for our twenty-nine years
together--I’m still picking myself up off the floor over that
one.”

“
Beckie,” Ira said. “I just want you to
know I’m very ashamed of my brother. The mess he’s caused by taking
up with his sleazy concubine is unforgivable. We all have to make
choices in this life, and I must say, I’m totally against the
choice Bernie made.”

“
Thank you, Ira,” Beckie said. “By the
way, do either you or Leah know where he’s staying?”

Ira and Leah exchanged slightly uncomfortable
looks.

“
Oh, don’t tell me!” Beckie said. “He’s
not at your place in Agoura!”

“
The bum came to us yesterday afternoon
and begged us to let him sleep in the guest room for a few days,”
Leah said. “I was against it, but Ira caved in.”

“
I should think you would have sent him
on his way,” Beckie said. “Especially you, Ira--Bernie’s your
brother. Don’t you think you could have at least sent him to a
hotel out of respect for me? The way it stands now, it looks like
you are siding with Bernie! What I don’t understand is--why he
isn’t staying with his tramp?”

“
Beckie,” Leah said. “I don’t know if
now is the right time to tell you this. On the way over, Ira and I
discussed breaking the news to you. Ira was against me saying
anything, but I think you should know, Bernie broke it off with
Nolene.”

“
What are you talking about--what do
you mean, he isn’t seeing Nolene anymore? She’s having his
baby.”

“
Actually,” Ira said, “she’s not having
his baby. It seems that Nolene lied to Bernie about being pregnant
with his kid.”

“
Did he fire her?” Beckie
said.

“
Not exactly,” Ira said. “--she still
has her job, but he’s ending the relationship.”

Beckie looked around helplessly, her action
drawing the attention of the drink waiter.

“
I wasn’t calling you,” she said to the
waiter, “but as long as you’re here, you better bring me another
Margarita.”

“
I think we could all use another,” Ira
said.

This new reality carried with it a certain
freaky wavelength which began resonating unpleasantly within Beckie
as she realized the awful truth--Bernie had left her--not because
of another woman--but just because he wanted to. Somehow, the
abandonment had been tolerable when she’d understood the
justification to be the Oldest Reason In The World--another woman.
But the thought of her husband of twenty-nine years of marriage
who, after having dabbled in the wares of another chick and who had
subsequently taken out divorce papers on his wife as a result of
the comparison, her husband who’d vowed, at one of the nicest
chapels in Los Vegas, twenty-nine years before, to love, honor,
cherish, and obey until death did he part, this husband, having
dilly-dallied around with some chick half Beckie’s age, had simply
gone off to live at his brother’s house and repossess her car, and
arrange for her to face a phalanx of his high-powered Century City
lawyers in the morning--all this without a word from him spoken
directly to her, his choice being the intermediaries of his brother
and sister-in-law, her best friend, Leah.

“
Why hasn’t Bernie even called me?”
Beckie said.

“
He’s too proud,” Ira said. “He told me
he’s not going to go around with his tail between his
legs.”

“
Why did he take my car, did he tell
you that?”

“
It had something to do with Nolene,”
Ira said. “Apparently he gave the car to her.”

“
He gave my Mercedes to his
secretary?”

“
I’m sorry,” Ira said.

“
I’m going to be sick,” Beckie said.
“Please excuse me.” With that, she got up and made tracks for the
powder room, quick-stepping along the tile breezeway and through
the door marked Banos Damas, praying that she’d make it on
time.

Chapter
18

“
I guess you could say that what began
as a terrifying and stressful situation yesterday, has become quite
a bit clearer tonight,” Beckie said. “You guys are all against me.
What shocks me most is you, Leah--doesn’t the fact that we’ve been
friends since high school mean anything to you?”

“
Please don’t feel betrayed because we
took Bernie in,” Leah said. “After all, he’s Ira’s flesh and
blood--I had to respect Ira’s wishes. I’m caught in the middle
between the two brothers.”

The two ladies, sitting together on the
little couch in the anteroom inside the Banos Damas, were
attempting to find a common ground upon which the energies of the
long-standing friendship could be put to work to sort out the
various issues which had just arisen, issues regarding loyalty of
friends versus loyalties of blood relations, issues complicated by
the giving of elaborate presents to overactive teenage office
workers and seductresses, the whole of which had overwhelmed Beckie
to the point where she’d been forced to empty the contents of her
stomach, an unpleasant occurrence at best, but one that now left
her drained and dispirited and not looking forward to continuing
the evening, or anything else.

“
I guess I’m really being forced to
face reality today,” Beckie said. “I have to confess something, but
you’ve got to promise it stays between you and me.”

“
You know me, Beckie,” Leah
said.

“
I was going to murder Bernie tomorrow
at the lawyers,” Beckie said. “I was simply going to march in and
blast him four times right in the chest with my little
snubby.”

“
For real?” Leah said.

“
For real,” Beckie
confessed.

“
That concerns me,” Leah said. “Any
other woman making that claim, I could dismiss it, but you--what
with your training and all--it’s a threat I think I might have to
take seriously.”

“
Trust me,” Beckie said. “I’ve changed
my mind. After hearing what I heard tonight, I guess you could say
I’m not as angry at Bernie as I was before--I think my urge to kill
arose from the constant thought of him and that little concubine of
his having a kid together--now that Bernie’s backed away from the
situation, it sort of took away my rage.”

“
I don’t know why he took your car and
gave it to her,” Leah said. “But when we get home tonight, I’m
going to confront the little weasel about it and see that he gets
you another car--a woman can’t be left without a car in Los
Angeles--it’s unthinkable that he should do that.”

“
What’s worse,” Beckie said, “and not
that it matters anymore, but that car had my wedding ring in it--I
flung it somewhere in the back seat yesterday!”

“
Your wedding ring?” Leah
said.

“
Doesn’t that just stink! You can tell
Bernie he accidentally paid his Lolita, in addition to the hundred
and fifty grand the car cost, probably another thirty or forty
grand--that ring was a flawless three carats. The inside aura was a
high, blue-white iridescence without a trace of yellow.”

“
Where will it end?” Leah
cried.

“
My whole life has turned into the
unthinkable,” Beckie said, “What I find most unthinkable of all is
that Bernie could break his vows the way he did. How could that man
just up and abandon me?”

“
You want to know something?” Leah
said. “Bernie told me why he abandoned you. I guess it wasn’t such
a sudden decision for him--it took him months to actually work up
his courage. I’m not sure if now is the time to bring up why he did
it, though--how’s your stomach holding up?”

“
My stomach feels fine,” Beckie said.
“Better. But remind me never to eat here again when I’m emotionally
upset--Mexican food isn’t the kind of stuff you want to taste
twice, believe me. So tell me--what reason did the little horned
toad give for abandoning his wife of twenty-nine years?”

“
It’s the thing about no children,”
Leah said. “As you’ve suspected all along. The man’s going through
some kind of identity crisis--he complains constantly that he’s
built this tool empire, but he has no one to leave it to but the
IRS. And now, with the merger almost in place, he feels even worse,
because his little empire’s going to be just that much more
valuable. Apparently, the more valuable the tool business is, the
more it hurts Bernie that he can’t leave it to the son he never
had.”

“
He blames me for him not having a
kid,” Beckie said.

“
He does,” Leah said. “I’m
sorry.”

Beckie spun and grabbed Leah. “Do you see
what a crock that is! Don’t you see what they’re doing to us? I had
two miscarriages with Bernie and who gets the blame? Me! Did it
ever occur to him that perhaps my body miscarried because something
was wrong with his half of the contribution? Did it ever occur to
him that I, too, have no offspring to carry on my name? That I,
Beckie, am the last of my line to breath this air and walk on this
earth? Did it ever occur to that fat little worm that to blame me
for those miscarriages is the greatest deceit of all time?”

“
Beckie, you need to calm down,” Leah
said.

“
Oh no,” Beckie said. “Bernie is the
one who’s wrong here. He’s the one who broke the agreement to love,
honor and obey--he’s the one who keeps coming up with the reasons,
excuses, and self-justifications to assign me to a living
death--don’t you see? His abandonment is no different in intent
than if he just walked up to me and shot me dead! For the rest of
my life, the people who know me will know me as the woman who was
abandoned by her husband for failure to reproduce more like him!
Well, as far as I’m concerned, I’m glad I miscarried! You go home
tonight and tell him I’m glad I didn’t make any little Bernie’s!
You tell him that!”