Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives (8 page)

“Seriously, Lyssa, I’m doing the poor guy a favor. Why, you just
wouldn’t
believe the shape his briefs are in.”

“Just how would you know what shape they’re in, pray tell?”

“Well, um . . . yesterday I happened to be over there when he was doing laundry—”

“I thought he had a part-time housekeeper for that.”

“I guess she used to do it—before he let her go.” She leans in conspiratorially. “He gave her notice on Friday. Something about proving to DeeDee’s attorney that he doesn’t need domestic help.” She giggles at this folly. “Of course, that was before he realized a blue pen had found its way into the wash with all of his white boxers and T-shirts—”

“If you really want to do him a favor, why not just replace what he had? My God, Tammy, he’s a securities attorney, not a performer at Chippendales!”

“Heck, what would be the fun in that?” She puts down her packages with a pout. “Hey, what’s with you lately? You seem so grumpy.”

Grumpy, huh? Yeah, well, that is the least of it. More like tired (since Halloween, Olivia has refused to go to bed before ten because she is now afraid of dementors) and worried (Mickey’s prim bitch of a teacher thinks his practical jokes have gotten out of hand, and has recommended that he be tested for ADHD).

And to top it all off, I’m horny. Ted has worked late every day these past couple of weeks, and usually slips into bed in the early
morning hours when I am already fast asleep.

Maybe that’s why I’m a little hurt that Harry’s previously undivided attention has been diverted to my board. Practically overnight he has gone from pathetic gossip fodder to the DILF du jour. Not only has he made himself available for coffee klatches and carpooling, but apparently my friends have been granted an open invitation to cry on his strong, broad shoulders whenever their marital problems become too heavy a burden.

Tammy rummages through stacks of boxer briefs. “Did you know that Isabelle is finally off her diet?”

“Wow, that’s great! It’s about time she got the message!”
Diet
is the board’s polite euphemism for Isabelle’s postmeal upchucking. While the majority of Isabelle’s friends follow a policy of don’t ask, don’t tell, and don’t listen to what is happening in the adjoining bathroom stall, for some time now I’ve been begging Isabelle to seek help with her low self-esteem.

“Yeah, well, he certainly knew the right way to put it so that she’d listen.”

“Wow, good for Lyle!” In the past, Isabelle’s husband has been less than supportive. Make that passive-aggressive. Why else would he pucker up for a wolf whistle every time some lithe young body in a string bikini crosses his path?

“
Lyle?
Don’t make me laugh. Silly, it was our
Harry
who turned her around. He convinced her that men love women with a little meat on their bones, and that she’s perfectly beautiful.” Tammy sighs. “I just
love
that man. He is
so
intuitive about the female psyche!”

Our
Harry? No, he is
my
Harry.

Or he
was
mine, and mine alone, until I introduced him to these shameless hussies. . . .

“Imagine that! So he knows how men think? Gee, I wonder why that is.” I know I sound sarcastic, but I hate seeing my own knight in shining armor attending to other damsels in distress.

Oh, sure, I’m glad he was able to gain my friends’ approval and empathy. But I never anticipated they’d take over the care and feeding of the Wilder family.

Or that he’d take to it so eagerly, like a newborn babe to a teat.

Or, in this case, to ten cosmetically inflated ones.

Nothing I say shames Tammy from her goal: moving to the head of this pack of über-nurturing she-wolves. She asks the Nordy shopboy to ring up not only the blue and the orange trunks, but five other pairs as well, a veritable rainbow of sensual microfibers.

While she plucks ribbed pima cotton wife-beaters from the T-shirt bin (two sizes too small for Harry, I’m sure), I substitute a pair of good old-fashioned Hanes boxer briefs for the most shocking pair in the pile, a see-through leopard-patterned “bong thong.”

Now,
that
is the true meaning of friendship.

2:02 p.m.

There is still a full hour before after-school pickup, plenty of time to marinade the shrimp for our dinner tonight. But just as we pass Harry’s house, Tammy veers into his driveway. She can hardly wait to present her little treasures to him.

“I don’t think it’s a very good idea for us to barge in without calling.” In truth, I feel a little uncomfortable with that concept for two reasons. In the first place, since the women’s constant hovering began, Harry has been a bit distant to me, almost cold. And second, I’d hate for Harry to think I had anything to do with Tammy’s questionable gifts.

But Tammy dismisses me with a wave of a hand. Her expertly manicured nails are too long and too red, like talons that have nabbed some delectable prey and won’t let go. “Oh, he won’t mind. Besides, I do it all the time.”

Before I can say “Count me out,” she has leaped from the car and is standing at the front door. She tries the knob, but it is locked. Five
minutes of leaning on his doorbell does nothing to change that fact, so she saunters over to the side of the garage where, after stepping out of her Manolos, she jumps up onto one of his garbage cans in order to peer into a window high overhead. I cringe at the thought that a neighbor may drive by.

Or, worse yet, Harry himself.

“That’s funny. His car is inside—”

Just then, Colleen comes out of her pseudo-Tudor across the street, Le Creuset casserole dish in hand. But the smile on her face turns into a disapproving scowl when she notices Tammy perched on the trash can, and me standing beside it.

With as much dignity as she can muster, Tammy jumps down onto the stamped concrete driveway. “Gee, Colleen, imagine meeting you here.” The sarcasm in her voice is palpable.

“Ha. Well, I’m not surprised at all that you’d be parked on Harry’s doorstep. From what I hear from Brooke, you’ve practically moved in. I didn’t realize she’d meant into the garage. Isn’t it a bit crowded in there, what with Temple’s puppy and all?”

Ouch.

Tammy goes bright red under her Clarins Intense Bronze self-tanning tint. “That bitch! She of all people has no room to talk. Why, she was over here all day yesterday, and the day before that too.”

That’s when I remember that yesterday Brooke begged off from the monthly class-mom meeting at the school, supposedly because she had a headache. “Really? She was here? Just how would you know that?”

“Because I can see Harry’s house from mine.” She points across the street and far up the hill where, behind a copse of leafy heritage oaks, we can barely glimpse a high bathroom window of Tammy’s perpetually remodeled Midcentury Modern monstrosity.

I shake my head in disbelief. “I don’t get it: you stand in your shower stall all day and spy on Harry?”

Tammy’s expression changes from triumph to guilt. “I’m not
exactly spying. I happen to glance out my window occasionally—”

“That window is pretty high. Wouldn’t you have to climb up onto the toilet seat?”

Tammy opens her mouth to say something, then thinks twice and shuts it again.

Colleen isn’t interested in any more lame excuses. Time is fleeting, especially when you have three boys who have to be shuttled to different after-school programs simultaneously. She dives under the high privet hedge by the front door, searching until she spots one of those faux rocks for hiding keys.
“Aha!”
She has struck gold.

But then something else catches her attention. She sets down the rock and the casserole in order to pull a powder blue Ladies’ Schwinn bike out from behind the hedge.

We all recognize it as Margot’s. Did she hide it so that we would not guess that she is inside with Harry?

Tammy and Colleen exchange knowing glances. As for me, I am numbed by shock. Is Harry having an affair—with
Margot
?

I may not want to know the answer to that, but Colleen is bound and determined to catch them red-handed. In one giant leap she’s up on the stoop, balancing the casserole dish in one hand as she fits the key into the lock with the other.

She is still fidgeting with it when suddenly the door opens. Harry peers out. He is cradling Lucky, Temple’s wriggling Airedale pup, in the crook of his arm. Seeing that it’s us, he forces his lips into a smile. When his gaze gets to me, he does a double take and his blue eyes cloud over.

Hey, don’t blame me. This
was not
my idea. . . . 

But I can tell he’s not buying it. I sigh. Granted, I could just walk home from here and by doing so avoid the knowledge that my idol has clay feet. Too late. I’ll just suck it up for now.

He puts an index finger to his lips and points to his Bluetooth headset, then motions for us to enter. As we troop in after him, Tammy’s and Colleen’s eyes scan the room for any sign of Margot.
Nothing. However, I’m somewhat pleased to note that the whole living room has become a playroom. DeeDee’s Ethan Allen collection now serves as a super-size Bratz showroom.

“. . . Yeah, right, Edwin. . . . Yeah, sure I agree, go for it. . . . Yeah, I said I don’t care, just do it.” Harry shrugs indifferently as he speaks, but he is pacing the floor, a ball of nervous energy. I’m glad his divorce attorney finally has good news for him, because thus far Bethany has been wiping the floor with him. “Look, I have someone at the door. Gotta go. . . . No, I went in yesterday, but I’m working from home today. . . . Yeah, Bradley’s been on my back about it, but that’s the way it’s got to be these days. It’s my turn for carpool.” The steely grin is back, for our benefit, not Edwin’s, I’m sure. “If I go in for a few hours tomorrow, I’ll stop by.”

He clicks off the headset, then tosses it onto a cushioned chair already loaded with Barbies and stuffed animals. “Well, ladies, nice to see you—and to see you
again,
Colleen.”

She colors a bit. “Oh, well, when I dropped off those strawberries from my garden, I did mention that I had something else for you to, ah, munch on later.”

From her seductive tone, it is obvious to everyone that it was not the casserole that she previously had in mind.

Not to be outdone, Tammy holds up her bag of goodies. “I come bearing gifts, too.”

“Oh? Gee, you shouldn’t have.” Warily he takes the bag, but he doesn’t dare look inside. Lucky sees this as the perfect time to make his escape. He bounds out of Harry’s arm and skitters out of the room.

“It was the least I could do. After our little accident in the laundry and all.”

“What little accident?” Colleen can barely hide her jealousy.

Harry turns beet red. “She . . . I . . . well, I guess you could say that I got distracted. Wrong washer setting.” He looks pointedly at Tammy, but he carefully avoids my eyes.

Oh . . . my . . . God. Maybe he does have something to hide.

From the kitchen comes the sound of the back screen door creaking shut. Harry must have heard it too, because he stares in that direction.

I take it Margot has made her getaway.

Ah, so
that’s
how it is. . . . 

The others are too enthralled with their host to have heard it. Nevertheless, I am repulsed. All I can think about is getting out of there too. “Wow, look at the time! I’ve got to go pick up my kids. . . .”

Despite this very broad hint, neither Colleen nor Tammy is ready to go—at least, not until Margot comes out of hiding. “You haven’t seen Margot, have you?” they ask in unison.

Harry’s only chance to divert them is to open Tammy’s bag and pull out one of the boxes. With as much enthusiasm as he can muster, he murmurs, “Wow, look at what we have here!”

Tammy swells up with pride. “Oh, just a little something I thought you’d like.” Of course Colleen is intrigued—and jealous.

The look on Harry’s face as he pulls a pair of lime green Mansilk trunks from its box is priceless.

Colleen’s
ooh
s and
aah
s drip with acid. If Harry is to fit into them, he’ll have to skip her casserole. Yep, Tammy has won this hand.

He shoots me a look of desperation, but I ignore it. When I arranged his meet-and-greet, I had assumed he was looking for friends, not lovers. Harry Wilder has made his bed—apparently both figuratively and literally—so now he can lie in it.

Alone, or with Margot. Or Colleen, or Tammy.

Or all three, for that matter.

I also slip out the door—but not fast enough to miss hearing Tammy ask: “Hey, Harry, how about modeling them for us?”

2:33 p.m.

I am just entering my house when I realize I’m being followed. I turn
around to find Lucky staring up at me. “Had to get out of there too, eh, fella?”

I scoop him up and get a tongue bath by way of thanks. The boys both have after-school practice, but it’s my day to pick up Temple along with Olivia. Lucky will ride along and keep me company until I drop him and Temple back at Harry’s. By then my lovesick friends will have come to their senses and rescued their offspring before they are shuttled off to mandatory after-school daycare.

3:41 p.m.

I am right. Harry comes out alone, obviously relieved that Lucky hasn’t been dognapped by one of his new fangirls. I try to keep Olivia from bounding into the house along with Lucky and his little mistress, but she’s too fast for me.

“Don’t worry. She’s welcome to stay.” Despite the invitation, Harry’s smile is forced.

“Oh, um . . . well, I’d hate to put you out. I mean, if you are expecting more company. Or something.” I couldn’t help it. When I said “or something,” I almost spit out the words.

“‘Or something’? Just what exactly does that mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. It was a joke.” I get back into the car. But before I can start the engine, he has poked his head through my window.

“Yeah. A joke.
I’m
the joke, right? Of the whole neighborhood?”

If I start the car now, I’ll take his head with me. As tempting as that is, I take a deep breath instead. “Well, Harry, if that’s the case, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”