Four Friends (11 page)

Gerri took a breath. “The kids know the bare facts, so it’s only reasonable that you do. I just learned that years ago he had an affair, one that lasted two years. He admits it, he’s sorry, he’ll do absolutely anything to atone, but honestly, Muriel...Well, it was me. I asked him to sleep somewhere else for the time being. While we both get a little counseling. That’s the best I can do.”

“An affair?” she asked in a breath.
“Phil?”

“That was my exact reaction.”

“Of all my sons... Oh, hell, of all the
men
I know, I would’ve judged Phil to be the last!”

“I know. Please,” Gerri said earnestly, “please don’t blame me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, of course not! Listen to me, Geraldine—humans have lapses in judgment and when they do, it’s their own burden. I hope you’re not taking this on. As if there was any way you could’ve headed this off!”

“Maybe if I’d been more...amorous.”

“Right,” Muriel said with a snort. “And you’d have been too damn tired to work, carpool the kids and see everyone fed and clothed. Then he’d have to have found another woman for that! The stupid fool! He made a mistake! Sooner or later you’ll have to let it be
his
mistake. Lord, I think I might kill him.”

Gerri felt her eyes well up. “Thank you, Muriel,” she said softly.

“Don’t thank me for making sense. I just hope he finds a way to win you back because if he loses you, he will have lost the best thing that ever happened to him. And don’t make it too easy for him.”

“Believe me—”

“All the same, think carefully,” Muriel said. “I know he’s not perfect and now I know he’s also not that intelligent, but do think this through. It will be hard for you to find a man who’s truly your equal and while I don’t know anyone more capable, life alone can be dreary. And sad. Very sad. Punish him as much as you need to, but dear girl, don’t be hasty.” Then she took a breath and muttered, “The ignorant fool!”

“It’s already pretty dreary,” Gerri said. “Muriel, thank you for not blaming me. Thank you for not saying I should just get over it, since it was years ago.”

“All I have to say to you, darling, is thank you for letting the stupid fool live. I hate him at the moment, but he’s still my son. No longer my favorite son, but I think I’ll probably go on loving him even though he apparently doesn’t have a brain in his head.”

“Oh, Muriel, I do love you.”

“Do you need me? Should I come?”

“No. I think we should try to carry on this way for now. He’s spending some time around here, in close touch every day if not always present, and he’s doing everything he can. We should let things simmer awhile. I have things to figure out and I can’t be distracted. But thank you.”

“If you need me, you have only to call. I’ll come at once.”

Gerri laughed into the phone. “That would serve him right,” she said. “His mother and his wife on his case.”

“Yes. I can’t think of anything more likely to make him wish he were dead.”

* * *

Bob was already at work in Andy’s kitchen when she got home from school at five o’clock. She positively sparkled when she saw him. “Hey,” she said brightly. “You’re getting an early start!”

“I’m laying down the ceramic tonight. You’re going to have to stay off it for twenty-four hours. It could slide the grout.”

“Okay. Did you have dinner?”

“I grabbed something on the way over,” he said.

“I’m starting to think you’re afraid I might poison you.” She laughed. “I offer every night, but you’ve always already eaten.”

He stood straight and grinned, patting his firm, round stomach and treating her to that hypnotic grin of his. “Look at me, Andy. You think I’ve missed many meals?”

“You look healthy,” she said.

“That’s not what the doctor says.”

“What? Is your doctor worried about you?”

“Everything seems to be holding, but he’s convinced I’m overweight and headed for a coronary. That’s why I try to stay away from him. I feel fine most of the time.”

“Most of the time?” she asked, suddenly stricken with worry.

“Doing the work I do, my back and knees kick up sometimes. I’m fine. My age, you get aches and pains.”

“Do you mind if I ask—just how old are you?”

“Fifty-three. Getting up there.”

“Well, you’re just a few years older than me,” she said, opening her takeout carton on the dusty table.

“Not possible,” he said, getting down on his knees again. “You look like a young girl.”

“I’m a forty-seven-year-old girl. Can I get a glass of wine before I’m closed out of the kitchen?”

“Sure. You have plenty of time. But it’s going to go real fast now. After the tile, there’s not much to do. Just the appliances, countertops, baseboards, touch up. Do you still like the new cabinets?”

“Gorgeous,” she said. “What am I going to do with myself in the evenings when you and Beau aren’t here?”

“Oh, I’m sure you have plenty to do without someone making noise and messing up your house.”

She’d have to try to remember. This routine had given her so much comfort that she dreaded the kitchen renovation being finished. At first she thought it was just having someone around the house, but soon she noticed it was more than that, it was the quality time they spent together. Bob was there almost every day and she spent at least an hour just talking with him. Then she’d take Beau to her bedroom to lie beside her on the bed and she’d catch up on the day’s paperwork or just relax. Sometimes Beau would curl up next to her and she’d nod off; sometimes he’d roll over on his back and she’d idly scratch his belly while she watched TV. She hadn’t had a dog since she was a child. She realized more attention should be given to the serenity that came with scratching a big old dog’s belly.

An hour of conversation every day for four weeks, at least. That was quite a lot of talking. She knew so much about him, had told him so much about herself. She knew he lived in the guesthouse behind his sister and brother-in-law’s very large home. Their grown kids and grandkids were frequent visitors. It was like living with family while having his own place. He tried not to impose on them and helped them out whenever he could; they seemed to enjoy him being there. He felt no real urgency to move and certainly didn’t have the income to afford real estate in Mill Valley.

Sometimes their conversations were quite personal. She told him about her marriages and their failures, about trying to raise a son without the regular presence of his father. She even told him she probably got involved with her second husband because she was vulnerable to a good looking, virile young guy—and then she tried to apologize for being so indiscreet.

But he brushed that off. “That’s just normal. Biological. Don’t be embarrassed by that,” he said.

He told her about the few relationships he’d had, none of them intense. He felt he’d been a single man his entire adulthood, even though he’d been married once. “But I’ve always been very shy around girls,” he said. “Never did develop a good line, a smooth move. I was destined to be a bachelor.”

“That’s hard to believe,” Andy said. “You’re a good-looking man and—”

He laughed at her. “Andy, please. I’m just an old bald guy with a little too much flesh on the bone.”

But she didn’t see him that way. He was a large man with big strong arms and hands. He might be a little thick around the middle, but it did nothing to detract from his appearance. He had the most beautiful smile and his eyes always glittered when he talked, as if he was happy to his core. He had nothing in common with the type of man she had found herself attracted to over the years—she always went for guys who could be models. But none had ever soothed her so deeply with their voice. She hadn’t expected it from someone shy and quiet like Bob, but as she got to know him, she noticed he had a sexy voice, deep and rich. As for hair? Pfft. He didn’t have much but that didn’t make him unattractive. She especially liked his thick, dark expressive eyebrows and the tiny cleft in his chin.

They talked about how they chose their careers. Andy had majored in education, thinking she could fall back on her teaching degree after she’d done something fun, like work for an airline for a few years, travel and play and see the world. But then, during her student-teaching term she fell in love with the students and found enormous satisfaction in helping them learn.

Bob took almost an opposite turn. She should have guessed by his diction, his dialogue, he was an educated man. He had a degree in philosophy that was entirely useless to making a living. He’d planned to go on, get an advanced degree, teach. But then he began helping with home repairs, renovations, started working with wood, building and installing custom cabinetry. He discovered working with his hands filled his days with a quiet contentment he’d never felt before. It wasn’t a high-powered career, it didn’t pay all that much, but there was simply nothing else he’d rather be doing. He worked for a custom builder in addition to taking on some of his own jobs and the two added up to a lot of time and adequate income, but he wasn’t exactly climbing the ladder of success. He was a working man.

“I guess I’m just a classic underachiever,” Bob said with a laugh.

“Why would you say that? Look at the amazing work you do!”

“Well, I’m not striving for anything, really. Except to do what I do as well as I can. I’m self-indulgent. It feels good. I should challenge myself more, I guess. Did I tell you my wife has a PhD? In theology of all things. I guess that’s why she tried so hard to fit into the straight world.”

They had talked about their childhoods, their neighbors, their culinary likes and dislikes. Andy couldn’t think of any subject that hadn’t been covered, and the thought of him not working in her kitchen every day left her feeling more bereft than Bryce’s leaving had.

“Really, I’ll hate it when you’re not here. Having you to talk to has been like therapy,” she confessed.

“Probably not real good therapy,” he said, laughing. “You should get a second opinion.”

“It’s been more than satisfactory as far as I’m concerned,” she said, eating a little more of her chicken Caesar salad. “I don’t think I ever had such meaningful conversations with my husbands.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “Men and women have such different perspectives, they should explore it more.”

“You had good conversations with your wife, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “That was the hardest thing to give up. If we’d never been married, the friendship could’ve remained very close, I think. But we had that history, you know. I wanted a partner who was also a wife, she wanted a friend who wouldn’t presume that much. She had to move on. I had to let go.”

Andy sipped her wine. “How’s your sister’s stomach?” she asked.

He sat back on his heels. “It turns out to be her gallbladder, and it’s coming out in a couple of weeks. That’ll fix her up. How’s your neighbor Sonja?”

“Well, she’s improving. But she’ll never be the same, which is a challenge for me. On one hand, I’m so relieved not to put up with all her goofy stuff—from those herbal drinks to the way she insisted things had to be placed around the house. But on the other hand, she’s gone into a decline—so disappointed that all her theories failed, she’s not herself at all. She used to be peppy and obnoxiously positive, now she’s like the rest of us, tired, ratty, worn down, feels like she failed.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “Isn’t there any compromise in her mind? Like maybe all that stuff didn’t work for her husband, but that doesn’t mean it’s all wrong.”

“It’s more personal than that,” Andy explained. “It’s not just that it didn’t work on him, it obviously didn’t work for her—because she couldn’t see this coming. Now she thinks she doesn’t know her stuff, doesn’t have any intuitive power, can’t head off a domestic disaster.”

“Hmm. Someone needs to remind her that marital disharmony involves two people, even if one of them is intuitive.”

Oh, how I need him in my life,
Andy thought as she sipped her wine. “Dear God,” she said. “What am I going to do without you? I’m thinking of renovating the entire house, even though I don’t have a dime.”

He laughed. “I admit, I haven’t looked forward to a job as much as I look forward to this one. You turned out to be one of my most favorite people.”

* * *

Phil Gilbert’s secretary buzzed him; his mother was holding on line one.

“You utter fool!” she said, before he could get his entire cheery greeting out.

He let his head fall to his desk, but he kept the phone to his ear. “I thought this might happen eventually,” he said, slowly lifting his head. “How are you, Mother?”

“Incredibly disillusioned.”

“I hope you’re not going to ask me what I was thinking....”

“Why bother? If you had a clever answer for that, you’d be sleeping in your own bed! Are you going to be able to patch this up?”

“I’m doing everything I can, Mother. Really, there’s nothing you can do to make me sorrier.”

“More’s the pity. That’s a challenge I think I’m up to! Phillip, what are you doing to rectify this situation?”

“I’m doing everything she asks of me, Mother. Gerri’s in the driver’s seat.”

“Take a leave. Take her to Tahiti or Alaska or Rome. Do something demonstrative and flashy. Buy her—”

“Mother,” he said, cutting her off. “Mom, that isn’t what Gerri wants from me right now. I can’t win her back by throwing money at this. Believe me.”

“You have to
do
something! What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m not going to explain the details of our attempts at reconciliation to you. If Gerri wants to do that, fine. But I’m doing everything I can and you’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

“Hogwash. Have you bought her jewelry? Flowers? Lingerie?”

“Mother, stop it. You know my wife and you apparently know all about our situation. If I bought her jewelry, she’d pawn it, she’d feed me the flowers and hang me with the nightie. Now back off before you make it worse.”

“That hardly seems possible, Phillip. Who was it? Tell me that.”

“Not on your life,” he said.

Twenty minutes later, having spent the entire conversation refusing to discuss either his sins or his strategy for atonement, he told his mother he loved her and hung up the phone. He sat still for a moment. He’d been wrong. His mother could make him sorrier. He tried to remember Gerri’s deep breathing techniques from those long ago Lamaze classes.