The Secret Lives of Housewives (5 page)

She sometimes wondered whether she should be ashamed of her behavior, but she wasn't and had never been. She quickly removed her lightly applied makeup and smoothed moisturizer into her face and neck. Then, feeling unusually good and even a bit relaxed, she slipped beneath the covers and listened to Sam shuffle up the stairs and settle comfortably beside the bed.

Reaching down to scratch Sam's head, she picked up an old issue of
Advertising Age
. She didn't read enough, keep up with who's who and what's what. Okay, it wasn't pleasure reading but it wasn't exactly work either. She was amazed at how good she felt, just reading. She had a pile of work for the next day but for tonight she'd just chill.

O
n the eastern bank of the Hudson River, across from the Palisades, the town of East Hudson, New York, is a thriving bedroom community about thirty-five miles north of New York City. Like most Hudson River towns it sprang up soon after the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, when Otto Jenks built a small ferry to transport men, horses, and supplies across a slightly narrower section of the river. Otto called the area East Bank of the Hudson, quickly shortening it to East Hudson, abandoning the Native American name, which has been lost to history.

Mostly ignored by both sides during the revolution, East Hudson settled into a farming lifestyle, growing fruits and vegetables on small family farms, and raising thousands of cows, transporting their produce and livestock down the Hudson River by barge to the constantly hungry city at its mouth. Grapes became a substantial cash crop once a serious vintner named Elias Peters arrived and started the East Hudson Winery in the middle of the nineteenth century. Grand homes flourished, some for summer getaways, others for year-round flight from the heat and cold of New York City. Not as grand as the cottages of Rhode Island, they were still large and opulent.

When the railroad overspread the area, factories took advantage of inexpensive power from Niagara Falls and cheap transportation to sprout like mushrooms up and down the Hudson, making everything from hats to shoes, from stoves to elevators. A mixture of German, Italian, and Irish immigrants slowly moved north to provide cheap labor and many of the large East Hudson farms and estates were broken into smaller homes and apartments for the newcomers.

Early in the twentieth century, manufacturing slowly moved south and west, leaving deserted buildings and run-down railroad sidings all along the river to decay and rust. When the area railroads electrified, making short haul commuting practical, East Hudson found its true calling as a refuge for tired New York City workers. With stations in Tarrytown and Mount Kisco to the west, Croton to the south, and Peekskill to the north, the commuter railroads created a firm foundation for the entire county of Westchester, and the river towns gentrified.

Now a mixture of income levels and ethnicities, the town of twenty-five thousand boasted several main shopping areas, three large strip malls, and an easy commute to White Plains to visit Lord & Taylor's, Saks, and the hundreds of up- and down-scale stores located there. While cookie-cutter middle-income housing developments grew all around, the older section remained the center of town, with two good Chinese restaurants, three newer Oriental take-out places, Carvel, McDonalds, and two Italian restaurants with countywide reputations. The veal parmesan–eating public was strictly divided—those who frequented Antonio's and those who flocked to Villa Moretti. Fierce arguments arose, each group extolling the virtues of their favorite antipasto or chicken specialty.

The center of town life, however, was the Hudsonview Diner. It had gone through several owners before Nick and Maria Micklos took it over several years earlier, and for the last two years the Greek specialties had steadily improved until the pasticcio and lamb kabobs could be praised in the same breath as Antonio's chicken marsala and Villa Moretti's veal saltimbocca.

Now, late Saturday morning, one week after the sudden rainstorm, the four women sat in a booth by the large windows. They'd declined menus and just ordered coffee as they exhausted several subjects: how wonderful the yoga class was, the heat wave, now in its sixth day, and the latest episode of a Monday evening reality show that it turned out all of them watched, at least occasionally. The waiter arrived and put a heavy white mug in front of each woman. Eve carefully put her cell phone beside it.

“I'm delighted your husband agreed to watch the babies for you this morning,” Monica said, adding a packet of Sweet 'N Low to her cup.

“As he should,” Cait said, sipping her black coffee and wincing.

“He didn't bat an eyelash,” Angie said, looking a bit surprised, “but I don't want to be gone too long.”

“Hey, they're his kids, too,” Monica said, “and you're entitled to a small amount of time off.”

“I know,” Angie said, reaching into her gym bag, “but he works so hard all week that he's also entitled to his down time.” She pulled out her wallet. “I've got new pictures.” She opened to several photos of the twins, dressed in matching navy and white outfits. For the next several minutes the women oohed and aahed over the adorable babies.

“What does your husband do?” Eve asked when Angie had put the photos away.

“He teaches English in the South Bronx. It's a really tough high school—you know, lots of drugs and gangs. But he loves the teaching and he tries to steer clear of the other stuff. It scares me a little.”

“Has there been lots of violence in his school?”

“From time to time there's a fight or one of the guys brings a knife or gun to school. I think Tony's stopped telling me about that part of it.”

“So why does he stay in the city?” Eve asked. “There must be jobs up here somewhere.”

“It's not that easy,” Angie answered. “He submits applications all the time, but there are so many good teachers looking to get out of the city that there are hundreds of résumés for every job. He just hasn't gotten lucky yet.”

“That's tough,” Cait said, reflexively smoothing the polish on her index fingernail with her thumb.

No wonder she's so frazzled
, Monica thought.
Schoolteachers don't make nearly as much money as they should.
As Cait said, it was probably really tough for them to make ends meet. “How about you, Eve? You said you work, what do you do?”

“I work down in the garment district. I'm the executive assistant to the head of logistics for a shoe importer.”

Monica's attention was suddenly riveted on Eve. “Shoes? My favorite thing. Which brands do you bring in? With my wardrobe, I probably own some of your company's imports.”
Shit
, she thought, glancing at Angie. With all of Angie's financial difficulties, she shouldn't advertise how much she had.

As if reading her thoughts, Angie reached over and patted her hand. “You look embarrassed. Tony and I get along fine. Don't worry.” She turned to Eve. “Yeah, which ones?”

Eve mentioned the names of several high-end brands. “No shit,” Cait said, her eyes widening. “I have several pair of those, especially a wonderful little black slingback with a small rhinestone clip off to one side. I just love them.”

“I'm glad. I don't do the buying, of course, but I'm glad they're going in the right direction.”

“What does a person in charge of logistics do?” Angie asked.

“We take care of getting the shoes into the country from the Far East, customs, duties, tariffs, then filling orders from wholesalers, like that.”

“What about you, Monica? What do you do?”

Over the last few moments Monica had considered how to answer that question and had decided to play it low-key. She suddenly realized that she didn't want to seem like some powerful Madison Avenue type that these women wouldn't be able to relate to. She liked this little group and wanted to feel part of it. “I'm with C & B.”

“C & B?”

“Sorry. Those in the business are so used to the abbreviation. It's Conroy and Bates. That's a big ad agency in the city.” One of the top five, actually.

“What does that mean you do, exactly?”

“I deal with big corporations who need to buy TV time and print space to advertise their products. I set up media plans, work with the creative guys, and approve commercials, like that. I also try to convince them to buy more and spend more.”

“Phew,” Angie said. “From all I've seen on those cop shows on TV, being in the advertising business is a lot of high pressure.”

“On
Law and Order
, advertising people work twelve-hour days and sweat a lot over the possibility of losing an account,” Eve said.

“You got that right,” Monica said, trying to release the tension she suddenly felt in her jaw. It was always her jaw that felt it first. “That's why I'm taking this class. I've got to get rid of some of this stress.”

“Well, yoga's good for that,” Angie said. Her face softened and Monica realized that she was quite pretty, or would be if she'd do something about herself. She also realized that with twins, finding time to have her hair or nails done was probably out of the question. And there was always the money.

“How about you, Cait? You said you don't work?” Monica winced. “Maybe that wasn't the most tactful way to put that.”

“It's okay, Monica. I don't work, per se, but I'm busy all the time. I'm on the board of several large charities and it seems we're going and doing all the time. I paint, work out, and my husband and I do a lot of entertaining.”

“What does he do?” Eve asked.

“He's a partner in his family's real estate firm. American Properties.”

“Wow. They've got signs up everywhere,” Angie said. “Does he sell a lot of houses?”

“The firm does,” Cait said. “Actually he's on the corporate side, selling or renting entire buildings to big businesses, Fortune 500 types.”

“Where did you get the name Cait? I mean, spelled that way. I've never heard of it before.”

She told them about her teacher and the two other Caitlins.

“Why didn't they call you ‘Red'?”

“My hair wasn't quite this color back then,” Cait said to Angie, tucking a strand behind her ear with a charming, slightly embarrassed grin. “It has a little help about once a month now.”

The three other women giggled. “Ah,” Eve said, becoming serious again. “I've been admiring that color. It looks so fabulous with your face.”

“Actually, it would look great on you, Eve,” Angie said. “You might consider doing something like it. You could use one of those wash-in products, and if you didn't like it, it would just disappear slowly.”

“I don't think it would be right for me. Cait's so polished, so upscale, that it really looks perfect on her. Me? I don't think so.”

Cait looked uncomfortable with the compliments. “God, this coffee's really dreadful,” she said, quickly changing the topic. “I love this diner and I have lunch here a few times a week. The food's really good, but their coffee…” She made an ugly face. “I think it sits in those pots until it cooks down to gunk.”

Eve put her half-full cup down. “You're right, Cait. It really is sludge. A gal at the office makes dreadful coffee like this. My boss calls it cawful, for awful coffee.” She paused and her face softened for a moment. Then she said, “Anyway, this qualifies as cawful.”

Monica took a small swallow. She'd noticed the lightning quick change in Eve's mood but didn't comment. She hadn't really focused on the coffee since she'd been trying to cut down, but as she took another sip she couldn't help but agree with the other women. “I'm such a coffeeholic that I seldom notice what hot, brown liquid I'm drinking, but this really is the pits. I'd be afraid to let the spoon sit in the cup too long.” She grinned. “It might dissolve. Cawful. Great term.”

Angie sipped hers. “I'm just happy I can drink coffee again. You can't have caffeine while you're nursing, you know.”

“Oh, right,” Monica said. “That and no wine, were my sister's biggest complaints. Well, morning sickness, of course. And being unable to roll over in bed, and toward the end, no sex.”

Angie groaned. “Not much sex afterwards either.” Then she looked startled, as if surprised that the words had come out of her mouth.

“God,” Cait said. “I couldn't get along without sex, good, bad or indifferent.”

“Me neither,” Monica said.

“Oh,” Angie said, “I thought you weren't married.”

“And your point is?” she said with a leer. “You don't have to own the cow to enjoy the milk.”

“A woman I have to admire,” Cait said, grinning.

“You sound just like Tony did before we were married,” Angie added with a giggle. “He'd had enough of marriage.”

“He'd been married before?” Cait asked.

“Jordanna,” she said with forced lightness. “They were married for three years.”

“Exes are the pits,” Monica said. “My parents were divorced when I was thirteen and my mom never let me or my sisters forget what a shit he was.”

“Oh, Jordanna's not that bad. We used to have lunch occasionally.”

Monica caught a tightness in Angie's voice. “Used to?”

“Well, now with the babies and all, it's difficult for me to get out.”

“She doesn't visit you?” Eve said, then paused. “Well, I guess that would be a bit strange.”

“Very strange. Tony sees her from time to time.” Angie looked down at her watch. “Listen, guys, I have to get going. I really enjoyed getting out. Maybe next week?”