Heteroflexibility (3 page)

I tossed the phone on the bed. People used to say that about my mom.

I used to say that about my mom.

“I’m leaving now.” He stepped toward the door.

“So that’s it?”

He turned around, somewhat helplessly, now looking more like a lost little kid than a reproductive lothario. “I think so.”

“You won’t be back here?”

“I’ll have to come back eventually. The baby should have a house, and you can’t exactly afford it on your own.”

I sank down on the bed. “I didn’t think it would end this badly.”

He disappeared through the door, not even pausing as he called out, like an afterthought, “At least there’s no love lost.”

His footsteps on the stairs faded, followed by the front door opening and closing. I picked up a framed photograph from the dresser, me and that traitor on our wedding day. We were laughing, and the photographer had managed to capture a miracle—both of us looking pretty good, and happy. That very picture, and how I’d felt upon seeing it, was a big part of why I decided to quit the job I hated so much and become a photographer.

I never had a solid swing but it had been a good day for my aim.

The frame flew straight through the back window in a glass-splintering crash.

Then the doorbell rang.

Chapter 5: The Wicked Women Sisterhood

The three women looked terrible, bloated in oversized purple dresses, like a Mardi Gras float.  I pictured their inflated bodies hovering over Bourbon Street, tethered to teams of human ballast, scuttling to keep them on course amidst the crowds of bead-throwers.

I didn’t hate old ladies in general, but the ringleader, Marge, had made my mother miserable, loud and rich and full of opinions. Even at the funeral, Marge had dominated, taking over the flowers and the music and the food.

Normally I wouldn’t have booked them, especially on a Sunday, but my dad had actually called and asked me to do it, as a favor. Marge had contacted me the next day, arranging for me to take a picture of her “sisterhood,” who had gathered in Austin for a girls’ weekend.

The biddies wandered about the studio, applying makeup and exclaiming over each other. I mostly hid behind backgrounds and umbrellas, trying to keep my mouth shut. These painted ladies raised the Nellie Olsen in my soul.

I hadn’t actually seen Marge since the service twelve years ago, when I was fifteen and gangly and everyone wanted to pat my head and give me tissues, despite my dry eyes. I couldn’t imagine the fawning they would force me to endure if they caught any hint of marriage trouble. I had to hold it together even though at this very moment, Cade was probably searching for the spare keys to move my car so he could escape. These busybodies must not find out.

“Zest?” a sandpaper voice crooned.

I popped out from my dark corner. It was Marge, dragging jewelry from a bag.

 “Tell me which necklace is better, the red beads or the purple chain.” Marge held the strands over her ample bosom.

Both were hideous. “Um, gosh. Why not both?”

Marge beamed. “I like your style!” She turned her back and handed me the jewelry. “Do you mind, dear?”

Her perfume made my head rush, sweet and strong, like rotting lilies. I fastened the necklaces and she turned, striking a Betty Boop pose, knees together, bent at the waist, hands on her thighs.

“You look fabulous,” I managed.

“We all do!” she said, straightening and walking back to the other women. “Harriet, Genevieve, isn’t Zest the spitting image of her mother?”

They murmured agreement. Genevieve patted her hair, a helmet that could easily be confused with taxidermy. Harriett bent over to rummage through a bag, and I had to avert my eyes from the strain of her purple dress over her wide, wide hips. She turned to reveal an inkjet-printed sign that read, “The Wicked Women Sisterhood.”

I adjusted the position of a flash. “So how do you know each other?”

Marge dropped heavily onto a stool. “We all volunteered at the shop where your mother worked. And we’ve all been married to each other’s husbands.” She sneered at Harriet. “At least in the Biblical sense.”

Harriet tugged out a mirror and applied unnecessary rouge. She already looked like Raggedy Anne. “Oh, sit on it, Marge. We’re all big nasty hussies. It would have been fine, but we got old, and the men moved on to
other
other women.”

Genevieve crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “Little gold digging bitches.”

 “Not in front of Zest!” Marge protested. “Think of her dearly departed mother!”

The women all did a sign of the cross.

“We still have a little Catholic in us,” Marge said. “But it’s like snow in Texas, it doesn’t stick.” She pointed to the other ladies. “We could have hated each other, but we have too many kids in common. You know, the village raising the child.”

So they had all screwed each other’s husbands. Just what I needed at this moment.

Harriet put her arm around Marge. “Marge’s Timmy is half brother to my Annie.”

Marge faked-smiled back at her. “And my Angela is half sister to Genevieve’s Johnny.”

This was too much. All I could manage was a muffled, “Wow.”

Harriet pulled away and straightened her neckline. “It goes on. It’s possible that some of the paternity is…” she tossed a knowing look at Marge, “in question.”

Marge threw up her hands. “Water under the bridge!”

Genevieve rolled her eyes. “After we were set aside like old dishrags, we banded together.”

“And now we’re all fast friends!” Marge said, applying an additional layer of scarlet lipstick. She already looked like something from Munchkin land, short, wide, and garishly bright. I remembered my mom complaining about her, enduring all the volunteer ladies’ comments as they did their shifts at the resale store where Mom was the only paid employee. They came from a lot more money than our crummy little Dallas suburb. But Marge was the worst.

“Well, ladies,” I said. “I’ve set out stools. Let’s start arranging you.”

Harriet dashed forward. “The boas! Don’t forget the boas!”

Marge produced a bag and removed great tufts of feathers in bright pink.

“You sure picked a lot of color.” I cranked the backdrop roller and changed the plain white canvas to a vividly painted Parisian scene. Sometimes you just have to give in to schmaltz.

“Much better!” Marge crooned. “We’re in gay Pareee!”

“I thought you’d like that,” I said, and shifted the background light a few feet higher. Marge and Harriet were balding a bit, their glossy black dye jobs shot through with pale scalp. I was going to be Photoshopping through the night.

“She’s one of the best,” Marge said. “Any daughter of Fay would be.”

Yeah, a self-taught photographer with less than a year’s experience was one of the best. I tried to accept the sentiment without the whiplash of inner sarcasm.
She’s so like her mother
, they used to say when I popped out some smart-aleck remark as a teen. It definitely got worse after the funeral. Perhaps, like a witch, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mom’s death somehow caused a transfer of her snark to me.

I switched on the CD player, set to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

The women immediately began dancing together, swishing their boas and striking what they thought were dramatic poses.

“Okay, everyone, right here!” I called. “Look into my eyes. That’s it.” The women fluttered around the set manically, blowing kisses and showing beefy thighs with roadmaps of varicose veins. More Photoshop ahead.

Traditional arrangements seemed futile. I snapped shot after shot, trying to capture good sides and the least horrid angles of their broad waistlines, until their foreheads began to glisten.

I shut off the main softbox. “That’s a wrap, ladies.”

The women chucked the hot boas and switched to comfortable shoes.

“So, Zest, I heard you got married,” Marge said. “Was that the young man we passed coming in?”

“It was—is. My husband. Yes.” Crap. I was rattled. I busied myself with the camera to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes. Still, in my periphery, I could see them all glancing at each other. Not much got past these women. Even if there wasn’t any drama, they’d manufacture some.

“We sense,” said Harriet, touching her fingertips together and pressing them to her lips, “something amiss.”

“Oh no,” I said.

“Fay always did say little Zest was sensitive,” Marge said.

“How long have you been married, dear?” Harriet asked.

I swallowed. Keep it together, girl. “Five years.”

“Still room to grow,” Marge said. “Good years yet.”

“You two still jiggling the chandeliers?” Harriet asked, swinging her hips and winking.

My face flamed. “Yes, of course.” I didn’t sound convincing, even to me.

“Uh oh,” Genevieve said. “Trouble in the bedroom? That’s the first sign.”

Harriet took my hand and led me to a stool. “Spill it.”

Oh no, no, no. I would not get sucked into their little society of men haters. Even if I did, sort of, despise men at the moment. Besides, they might call my dad before I got the chance.

I spun on the stool and slipped over to a light box, snapping off the modeling light. “I’m fine. Really. So tell me, should I put the proofs online or mail you some hard copies?”

Marge shook her head. “Never mind that. You can tell us about your wretched home.”

I closed my eyes a moment. I had no idea how to get out of this. I tried to circle them and make a break for the door, but the women had closed in.

“Is he working late? Taking sudden trips?” Marge asked.

“Listening to popular songs? Eating or drinking new things?” Harriet added.

“Does he pay attention to you in random spurts, then seem distracted?” Marge asked.

“You guys really are experienced,” I said.

“We’re the best,” Genevieve said, kicking their awful little sign.

“Does he have a lawyer yet?” Marge asked. “He who files last loses.”

What did that mean? Lose what? “He served me papers yesterday. Is that bad?”

Harriet drew in closer. “Now listen here, and listen good. Texas is a horrid place for divorce. A no-fault state. No alimony. You don’t have any kids, so you can’t even squeeze him there.”

“I don’t want to squeeze him—”

“Did you support him for a while?” Marge’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, I worked while he did grad school.”

The women nodded, and I felt panic rising. “I don’t think he used me. He makes a lot more money than me now!”

“Ah, good, good,” Harriet said. “Whose name is the house in?”

“Both, I think.”

“Also good.” She moved in close. “Now, once the papers are served, if he’s playing hard ball, your assets will be frozen. You won’t be able to spend any money above usual expenses. If he’s been paying the bills, you’re going to have to figure out how to work the living arrangements.”

“You need to look for any strange purchases he’s been making,” Marge said. “Furniture, a deposit somewhere. He might be supporting some hussy.” She glared at Harriet, who shrugged.

I hadn’t thought of that. “I can’t make the mortgage on my own. And he wants the house—” My throat closed. I couldn’t confess the part about the baby.

“Girl, you have to protect yourself,” Marge said. Just like at the funeral, she handed me a tissue even though I wasn’t crying.

“It’s going to be all right,” Harriet said. “Women are strong. And at least without any kids, you aren’t stuck with him any longer than the ink dries on the decree.”

Chapter 6: Pack, Rats

By late morning on Monday, the boxes covered all available floor space. I couldn’t pack the studio, as I had a shoot the next day, but after that, I had nothing booked. I only ever seemed to work in short bursts.

The living room seemed hopelessly his. Furniture, part of his grandmother’s estate. Artwork, his mother’s. Television, a gift from his dad.

Ellen’s show was on. Hilary Swank showed off an Ellen haircut and had even dressed like her, doing an amazing job of mimicking her dance moves and gestures. Normally I would have been mesmerized, but today I couldn’t care less.

I walked away and wandered down the hallway, mentally noting things I would take with me. Mainly small stuff. I had no place for furniture right now even if it was mine.

I took photos off the walls and set them in a stack. None of me and Cade, but one of my dad, some macro shots of flowers, a skyline of Austin. I had one old image up, a family shot shortly before Mom’s cancer, just me and my parents. I was thirteen, gangly but still hoping I would fill out. I was still hoping.

I should call Dad, tell him about the divorce. He’d want to know. Besides Marge would probably tattle.

Oh, those women. I still wanted to shudder, recalling how I’d been forced to endure their endless hugging and patting and squeezing and consoling. How had they wormed that confession out of me? A parrot could have kept its mouth shut better. Brrok! Zest has got a secret! Brrok!

I shoved the pictures into a frame box. Fern was due any minute to help me pack. She’d been my friend since college, the only one that was mine and not also Cade’s. Couple friends were worthless at a time like this, all worried about taking sides. Fern had offered to put me up in her condo for a while, sympathetic about me losing the wedding.

I turned to the kitchen. I’d made very few dinners here. I wasn’t any sort of domestic goddess. We’d eaten out mostly, once Cade had a good job. I really had supported him through grad school, and he had given me my turn a year ago, letting me start my own business while he supported me. Until now.

The manila envelope lay on the counter. I ripped open the top. The words “Petition for Divorce” were enough to make me suck in a breath.

I glanced out the window at a passing car to see if it was Fern, then returned to the papers.

“In the matter of the marriage of Cade Renald (petitioner) and Zest Renald (respondent).”

My eyes flitted shut involuntarily.

I thought of Winston on the day of the wedding, rushing down the hallway to tell me not to worry, that Cade had just been delayed. His hair had flapped in his mad dash, and I found myself laughing so hard I could scarcely hear what he was saying.