The Breakup (10 page)

I was starting to feel panicky. I had to get this girl back to my house before the deputy arrived. “Listen, Mary. Please.
I know things about Roger that only a wife”—my throat tightened—“or a lover would know. Like, there’s a red mark on his rear
end shaped just like Texas.” I realized she probably didn’t know where Texas was, let alone the shape of it, so I found a
pen in my bag and drew a picture on the back of a bank deposit slip. “Here. Like this.” Mary stared at it but said nothing.

I went on. “A wife would know that his favorite breakfast is vanilla yogurt with granola and a glass of apricot nectar, and
his second favorite is a banana-nut bagel with honey-walnut cream cheese. And a wife would know that he times it so that he
finishes the bagel and his coffee—black, no sugar—at exactly the same time.” I checked Mary’s expression. Her eyes looked
watery, but otherwise her face remained stony.

“Let’s see . . .” I continued. “He pees in spurts, and sometimes it sounds like he’s peeing out a song, like ‘Mary Had A Little
Lamb’—you know, pee pee pee pee pee-pee-pee. Wait. I know. He’s afraid of bees, he hates Swiss cheese, he only brushes his
teeth
after
he eats breakfast because he doesn’t like how food tastes with toothpaste in his mouth, and oh! the little toe of his left
foot is weird, like this.” I quickly slipped off my shoe and crossed my pinky toe over the next toe. “See?”

No reaction.

I was sweating now. “And he just loves
Xena.
If
Xena
’s on, forget it. Nothing else matters.” I knew this was a long shot. In all likelihood, he was too busy screwing this girl
to watch
Xena
or anything else on the tube. Surely his devotion to
Xena
was a byproduct of his boredom with me, but I threw it out there anyway.

Bingo! Mary’s face crumpled and she sobbed into her hands. I heard her whimper, “Yes.
Xena.
How I hate that lady!”

I moved closer and put an arm around her. It would have been so easy to hate her, but my heart ached for this girl. “Listen,
sweetheart, Roger played a bad trick on you. Can you understand that?” She howled louder. “He’s a bad man. He already has
a wife. Me. And he has a little boy. See?” I took out the key chain again and held it in front of Mary’s face. She peeked
at it from between her fingers. “It’s Petey. He’s just a little boy. Such a sweet little boy. And Roger is his father.”

Mary stopped crying and started snorting mucus back into her throat. Her nose was red and bulbous. It was getting late. I
had to move quickly now. “Look, Mary, Roger is not allowed to have more than one wife. It’s illegal. Do you understand what
that means? It’s against the law.”

Her eyes widened. “Am I going to be in trouble? With the policemen?”

I had her now. She was scared. “I don’t know, Mary. Maybe.” I hated to exploit her gullibility, but what choice did I have?
“People in this country aren’t allowed to have two wives at the same time. And if you lied about your age, well, that’s also
against the law.”

She was crying again. I stroked her hair. “Mary, I’m going to help you, I swear. We’re going to straighten everything out
and I’m going to make sure you don’t get put in jail or anything. But now you have to come with me. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay. I’ll come.” She was barefoot. I grabbed the flip-flops by the door and handed them to her.

Mary stared out of the Jeep’s window all the way home, and I realized that this was all new to her, these streets filled with
gas stations, chain restaurants, and Laundromats. Roger had kept her a prisoner; he’d convinced her that the condominium was
all the world she would ever need. I knew that I’d attained the highest level of detachment from Roger when I realized that
I cared more about this girl’s welfare than the fact that she’d had sex with my husband. As I sped down Market Street Mary
would occasionally lapse into sobs, and I’d reach out to pat her arm. “You poor little thing,” I told her. “We’re going to
make things right, I promise.”

I can’t begin to describe the warmth that flooded my veins as I neared the house. Everything was going according to plan.
I had Mary. In less than an hour, the divorce papers would be in Roger’s hands. If Omar does his job, I’m going to be a wealthy
woman and Roger will be destitute. I felt the purest joy, an excitement so powerful I thought I might shatter.

I pulled into the garage and instructed Mary to stay put. Roger was upstairs. It was now 11:30. I grabbed a canister of Pringle’s,
some Little Debbie zebra cakes, a can of diet Coke and brought it back to the Jeep. “It may be a while. Do you want anything
else?”

Mary tore into one of the Little Debbie cakes and took a bite. “You have any magazines?”

I raced back into the house and found a stack of
People
and
Entertainment Weekly
in the family room. Her eyes lit up when she saw the magazines. “Oooh! The Backstreet Boys!” She released a small smile.
“Thank you.”

I left her alone with the junk food and magazines and prayed they would keep her busy for a while. I used my remote to lock
the Jeep doors. If she tried to escape, the alarm would sound.

Then the doorbell rang. I glanced outside and saw the sheriff’s car. I called upstairs. “Roger, can you please get the door?
I’m in the bathroom.” I scooted into the bathroom and listened as Roger trotted downstairs and swung open the front door.

“Roger Tisdale?” a deep voice boomed.

“Yes, that’s me.” Roger’s voice was thin, wary.

“This is for you, sir. Thank you, sir.” The door closed; the lock clicked. I stepped outside the bathroom just as Roger was
surveying the envelope. His face was gray. I froze in the bathroom doorway as Roger fingered the envelope.

“A sheriff’s deputy just delivered this,” he said quietly. “It looks like it’s from a law firm.”

This is it, I told myself. It’s happening. It’s really happening. I wanted to jump out of my skin. I fought to keep my voice
even. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

Roger slumped in a chair by the kitchen table. “I’m afraid to.”

“What are you afraid of, Roger?” I was sure he knew. I was wrong.

He stared at me. “I’m just afraid it’s another, you know, another lawsuit. An Alyssa thing. You know.”

Oh dear. Poor Roger had apparently gotten himself into another mess. I decided to play with him. “Well, maybe you’d better
tell me about it before you open that envelope.”

His head sagged into his hands. “Sweet Jesus!” he cried melodramatically. “Why me? Why must it always be me?”

“Come on now, Roger, why don’t you tell me about it? It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh yes, I’m afraid it can.” Apparently Roger had taken a “special interest” in one of his actresses, the girl with the body
piercings who had once delivered pizza to our house. Now he fears that his interest might have been “misinterpreted.” She’d
quit the cast two weeks ago, hinted that she was getting a lawyer. “But I swear, I never touched the girl. I swear!”

“Oh, Roger, it must be so hard to be you.” He looked at me and bobbed his head. “A man of such passion such creativity. And
so misunderstood!”

“Yes, yes, that’s exactly it!” he cried. “You know me so well!”

“Now why don’t you go ahead and open the envelope? Just get it over with,” I urged.

He gazed at me gratefully. “As long as I have you on my side.”

“Of course, Roger. Now open it.”

He slipped a finger behind the flap and slid it along the length of the envelope. He slowly unfolded the letter, took a deep
breath, and began to read. “What the hell . . . ?” he looked stupefied. “What is this?”

“I’m leaving you, Roger. It’s over. I’m divorcing you.” Oh, the sheer joy of finally pronouncing those words!

“But why?” he shrieked. “Why?”

“There are many reasons, Roger. And my attorney will be happy to detail them for you. But the most important reason is a young
girl named Mary.”

“Who?” he asked, as I’d hoped he would.

I started toward the garage. “Don’t move, darling husband. I’ll be right back.”

When I got back to the Jeep, Mary was sound asleep (knocked out by all the junk food, no doubt, a condition with which I am
intimately familiar). I used the remote to unlock the doors; the loud click woke her up. She blinked at me and stretched.
“Can I go in now, Mrs. Ryan?” She lowered her voice. “I have to pee.”

“Absolutely, sweetheart. But first, we need to talk to Roger. See, just like I thought, he says he doesn’t
know you. He’s lying again. And we need to help him see the truth. Do you understand that?”

She nodded at me. “I understand, Mrs. Ryan.” I helped her out of the Jeep and tightened my grip on her soft, slender arm.
I couldn’t risk her running away, not when we were this close to blowing up Roger’s life.

As I steered her toward the door that leads from the garage to the family room, I surveyed all the junk piled in corners and
on the wooden shelves, the artifacts of our life together. Actually, they’re more like artifacts of the life we never led.
The matching Rollerblades we bought when one of our marriage counselors told us we needed to play together more. (We used
them twice.) The unopened cans of periwinkle paint I bought when I read about the healing power of color and decided that
what our marriage really needed was a fresh coat of paint. The canoe and helmets we bought for what Roger promised would be
a lifetime of outdoor adventure. We’d driven out to Quetico Provincial Park in Canada. Roger sprained his hand attempting
to wrench the canoe off the roof of the car, then spent the next three days whining about it. That was the last canoe trip
we ever took. Let me amend that: It was my last canoe trip. How many girls he seduced on the banks of Gunflint Lake is anyone’s
guess.

I held Mary’s hand as we walked into the family room. As I approached the kitchen I called out, “To
answer your question, Roger . . .” I gently pushed Mary through the archway dividing the family room from the kitchen. “Heeeeere’s
Mary!” I felt intoxicated. I was floating so high above this man, he was now a dark speck in the vast aerial view of my life.
I watched him as Mary stepped tentatively into the room. Roger tightly wrapped his arms around himself, as if to prevent some
involuntary confession or gesture of recognition. He looked at her face. Actually, he seemed to focus on a spot above her
head. He never looked into her eyes.

Mary raced toward him and threw herself at his feet, humbly and adoringly, like one of those little kids in
The King and I.
“Is true what Mrs. Ryan says, Roger? Is true that she’s your real wife? Is true?”

Roger looked down at the girl. “Get the hell off me!” he yelled. Then he hit her with his loafer, not a kick exactly, more
like an attempt to pry her off his legs.

She started to cry. “Why are you doing this, my husband? Don’t you know who I am? Your little Mary! Don’t you remember me?
I’m your wife, your little love blossom!”

Roger looked at me. “Who the hell is this person?” Roger seemed sincerely confused. Suddenly I wasn’t so giddy anymore. I
was scared. Had I made some bizarre mistake? Was Mary part of some elaborate scam designed to humiliate me?

I continued. “Don’t bullshit me, Roger. You know
exactly who this is, and so do I, and so does my private investigator.” I helped Mary to her feet and held her as she sobbed
and snorted into my chest. “You make me sick,” I said.

“You make me sicker,” he shouted, hoisting himself onto his all-too-familiar high horse. I could see him inflate with self-righteousness
as he warmed to his new strategy: He would take the offensive. “You bring this girl into our house from God knows where, and
you believe whatever craziness she tells you. Who knows what she has in mind, what she plans to steal from this house, what
diseases she’s carrying! You put your family and home in jeopardy all because some wacko tells you she’s my wife? You’re the
sick one, my dear.” He twirled a finger at his temple. “Certifiably loony!”

Now Mary was howling. I forged ahead. “Did you really think you were going to get away with this, Roger? You’re a smart man.
What on earth made you think you could have some kind of crazy pseudo secret marriage with a sixteen-year-old girl and actually
get away with it?”

Roger jumped up and pointed an accusing finger at Mary. “You said you were twenty-one.”

All three of us gasped at Roger’s self-revelatory faux pas. He covered his mouth with a hand and fell back in the chair. “Dear
God,” he muttered. “Dear God.”

I stared at him. “You pathetic excuse for a man.
You depraved, decripit sicko. You make me want to vomit.”

Roger rubbed his eyes wearily. “Don’t let me stop you,” he answered. “But not on the carpet, please.” I marveled at his ability,
even in his ravaged state, to construct a snide comeback.

“Allow me to enumerate your crimes,” I said. “Number one, you’re a bigamist. In case you’re wondering, bigamy is prohibited
in our state, according to Statute 1846, which states, in Section Five, ‘No marriage shall be contracted whilst either of
the parties has a former wife or husband living, unless the marriage with such former wife or husband shall have been dissolved.’
” He stared at me and I beamed back. “I looked it up on the Internet!” I was feeling giddy again. “Number two, you’re probably
going to be convicted of statutory rape!”

“I think not,” Roger said. “The legal age of consent in this state is sixteen.
I
looked it up on the Internet.” He thrust his chin out defiantly.

“But I was only fifteen when we started,” Mary said quietly.

Roger and I looked at her. Roger put his hands over his face. “Jesus God.”

I looked at my watch. “You have twenty minutes to pack a bag. Call me with your address and I’ll have the rest of your crap
sent to you tomorrow. Just get the hell out of here.”

Roger stood up and wagged a finger at me. “You’re
not going to get away with this, you realize that.” Roger was up to his neck in his own shit and he’s still playing the aggrieved
one. I could hear him stomping around upstairs like a kid who has lost his video game privileges. Doors were slammed, drawers
were flung open and banged shut. I heard him punch the wall and scream, “Fuck! Fuck! She can’t do this to me!”