Grand Avenue (17 page)

“Who’s Laura Zackheim?”

Tears immediately sprang to Barbara’s eyes. Her voice fell to the floor. “You know, the woman who bought Chris’s house.”

Ron reached across the table, patted Barbara’s hand. His touch was electrifying even now, after all these years. “That was more than two years ago,” he said gently.

“I know.” Would she ever be able to say Chris’s name without crying?

“I think we could both use a drink. What’ll it be?”

“Some white wine?” Barbara asked, as if she weren’t sure.

Ron signaled the waiter, conferred with him over the wine list as Barbara dabbed at her eyes, tried not to think about Chris. Laura Zackheim was a perfectly nice woman who was always inviting Barbara over to see what she’d done to the house, but Barbara hadn’t been able to bring herself to go. Maybe it was time to
put the past behind her, to bury old ghosts, banish old fears.

“I ordered the Pouilly-Fuissé,” Ron was saying, and Barbara smiled, thinking he looked especially handsome tonight, even though he’d come directly from work and a troubled look was in his eyes.

“Perfect. So, what happened to you today that you could use a drink?”

“I had a run-in with that asshole Simpson.”

Barbara suppressed a sigh of relief. Whatever was bothering Ron had nothing to do with her. It was that asshole Simpson, bless his little heart. “What kind of run-in?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what he was on his high horse about this time. There’s always something bothering him. Anyway, there’s no point in getting into it now. I’ll just get upset all over again. What about you? How was your day?”

Barbara shrugged. “I drove Tracey to camp, went to exercise class, met Vicki for a quick lunch, had my nails done.” She waved her long, red extensions in the air. “Then I picked Tracey up, took her shopping for some new T-shirts.” She paused. Was there anything she could say that would make her day seem more exciting? It sounded boring, even to her. “I was thinking of taking some classes,” she heard herself say. Was she?

“Really?” Immediately Ron’s face registered interest. “What kind of classes?”

“Current affairs,” she lied, saying the first thing that popped into her head. Where had that come from? She’d never had any interest in current affairs. She
barely managed to get through the Lifestyle section of the newspaper.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Ron smiled.

“Yes, well, there’s more to me than just a pretty face, you know,” Barbara said with a laugh.
Was
there more to her than just a pretty face? Her face had brought her everything—attention, accolades, adoration. Would there be anything left when that was gone?

The wine arrived and Barbara watched as the waiter filled their glasses, then deposited the bottle in an ice bucket that looked like a pail you take to the beach. “Would you like to hear our specials?” the waiter asked, and Barbara listened as he rattled off the chef’s suggestions for the day.

“I’ll have the sea bass,” Ron said. “And the house salad with raspberry vinaigrette.”

“Sounds good,” Barbara agreed. “But could you put my salad dressing on the side?” After the waiter left, she told Ron, “I’m trying to lose five pounds.” She was hoping he’d look at her with that funny little expression he sometimes got whenever she said something particularly stupid and ask why on earth she’d want to lose any weight when she was perfect just the way she was, but he only smiled and raised his glass.

“Cheers. Health and wealth.”

“To good times,” Barbara added, clicking her glass against his.

“Good times,” he seconded, then took a long sip, swirling the wine around in his mouth. “And good wine.” He lowered his glass to the table. “You’re looking very beautiful tonight.”

“Thank you. So do you.”

He laughed. Barbara sipped her wine, felt it warm inside her chest. She loved the sound of her husband’s laughter. It made her feel secure.

“I was thinking of calling your mother,” she offered, his laughter making her feel surprisingly expansive, “inviting her to dinner one night next week.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I’d like to. We haven’t seen her in a while.”

“I saw her yesterday.”

“You did?”

“I stopped by her apartment on my way home from work.”

“Any particular reason? I mean, she’s okay, isn’t she?”

“She’s fine. There were just some things I wanted to run by her.”

“Such as?”

“Just things,” Ron repeated, taking another drink, looking around the noisy room, which was quickly filling up.

Barbara followed his gaze. “Amazing you were able to get a table at such short notice.”

“Actually, I reserved the table a week ago.”

“You did?” What was he saying? That a previous engagement had fallen through, that she was a last-minute substitution? “I don’t understand.”

“I need to talk to you about a few things. I thought this would be a good place to do it.”

Barbara took another look around the crowded room. Why would he pick the middle of a busy restaurant to talk to her? Surely if it were anything important, he would have chosen the privacy of their home.
She held her breath, almost afraid to ask what he wanted to talk to her about.

“I’m leaving,” he said without further prompting, smiling as a couple brushed by their table on the way to their own.

“You’re leaving? You mean right now? Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick. That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“I’m moving out.”

“You’re moving out?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Our marriage isn’t working,” he told her simply.

“What do you mean, our marriage isn’t working?”

“It’s not working,” he said again, as if this would clear everything up.

The waiter approached with their salads. “And here’s your dressing,” he told Barbara.

“You invited me out to dinner to tell me our marriage is over?” Barbara asked incredulously.

The waiter dropped the small cup of salad dressing to the table and hurried away.

“This can’t come as a total shock,” Ron said. “You must have had some idea.”

Barbara fought to make sense of his words. Had she missed something? “When you left this morning, everything seemed just fine, thank you very much. How could I have had any idea? Why wouldn’t I be shocked? What are you talking about?”

“Could you keep your voice down?”

“We made love, for God’s sake. What, should that have been my first clue something was wrong?”

“That was an accident. I never meant for that to happen. You caught me by surprise.”

“I forced you?”

“Of course not.”

“It just wasn’t part of the plan.”

“No,” he said, grabbing his fork, waving it over his salad.

If he takes even one bite, Barbara thought, I’ll stab him through the heart with my butter knife. “This isn’t happening.” After all these years, after she’d turned a blind eye to all his infidelities … “Is there someone else?” she heard a voice ask, barely recognizing it as her own.

“No.” His eyes told her there was.

“Who is it?”

“There’s no one.”

“Who is it?” she asked again, her voice louder, more insistent.

He dropped his fork to the table. “Pam Muir,” he said softly, as if she should recognize the name.

“Pam Muir?” An image was slowly taking shape in Barbara’s mind of a young woman in her early twenties with a round face and pale, almond-shaped eyes. “Pam Muir,” she repeated, as the image came into sharper focus. Strawberry blond hair cascading down her skinny back, small, hopelessly perky breasts, and big, sultry lips. Men took one look at those lips and thought of only one thing, she remembered thinking the first time Ron had introduced them.

Stupid, pie-faced little girl, Barbara thought now. With pimples on her chin, no less. One big one, two smaller ones hovering just below the surface of her
ash-white skin. A nose smeared with freckles, like peanut butter on white bread. How dare her husband leave her for a pimply, freckle-nosed, pie-faced coed he’d brought into their home, right into their living room, into their dining room. She’d fed her, for God’s sake!

“It was so nice of you to invite the study group over for dinner, Mrs. Azinger,” pimply, freckle-nosed, pie-faced Pammy had said, helping Barbara stack the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

“My pleasure,” had come Barbara’s immediate response.

Dear God. “Pam Muir.”

To think she’d felt almost sorry for the girl. She might have a brilliant mind, as her husband had espoused on more than one occasion—the smartest student he’d taught in almost twenty years of teaching, he’d said—but she didn’t have a clue how to make a good impression, how to make the most of her appearance. As if long blond hair, small, perky breasts, and blow-job-sculpted lips weren’t enough, Barbara thought wryly.

All right, so he’d been having an affair. She’d suspected as much. So what? He’d been having affairs throughout their marriage. It didn’t mean he had to leave. It didn’t mean they couldn’t work things out.

“It just happened,” Ron was saying, although she hadn’t asked him to explain.

The waiter warily approached with their sea bass.

“Are you hungry?” Ron asked, and Barbara shook her head, although strangely enough, she was famished. Ron waved the waiter away.

“What can I do?” Barbara asked. Tears filled her eyes and she lifted her chin to prevent them from falling. Ten years off her face, the doctor had promised when she’d had her eyes done. Ron hadn’t even noticed. Should have asked for twenty, Barbara thought.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he told her. “It’s not your fault.”

But of course it was her fault, Barbara understood. Simply put, she wasn’t the girl he’d married; she’d grown up, grown old. Despite the makeup and the plastic surgery, new wrinkles kept a constant vigil just below her skin’s surface, waiting to ambush her at the first sign of complacence. Gravity continued its relentless assault on all sides, even while she slept. Perfect plastic breasts only emphasized the imperfections everywhere else.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said again.

“There must be something I can do to change your mind,” she begged, hating the neediness in her voice, hating herself even more. “I’ll do anything.” She would have gotten down on her knees if they hadn’t been in the middle of the most popular restaurant in town. She lifted her hands in the air, as if to implore him, thought better of it, and returned them to the table in defeat, her skittish fingers inadvertently sending the cutlery flying toward the floor.

“Was that necessary?” Ron asked, as if she’d done it on purpose.

“
Was this?
I guess I should be grateful you didn’t surprise me on the Phil Donahue show.”

Ron clearly had no idea who Phil Donahue was. “I
just thought that being in a public place would help keep things on an even keel.”

“Crowd control,” Barbara muttered.

“Something like that.” He smiled.

Barbara slumped back in her seat. “Coward.”

“I was hoping we could avoid the name-calling.”

“Asshole.” What the hell? She’d lost him anyway.

“Okay, I understand you’re upset.”

“You don’t understand a damn thing.” Did
she?
What exactly was she so upset about? That her husband was leaving her for another woman? That that woman was half her age? Half her size? That he’d had the temerity to bring her into their home, introduce her to his wife and daughter? That he’d chosen this most public of venues to break the news? That he’d made love to her this morning knowing he was going to dump her tonight? That he’d been planning his escape for at least a week? “That’s why you went to see your mother last night,” Barbara said, realizing this was true only as she spoke the words. “You told her you were leaving me.”

“For what it’s worth, she said I was making a mistake.”

“Well, she’s certainly right about that,” Barbara said, speaking over her surprise, deciding to call Vicki as soon as she got home, to take the bastard for everything she could get her hands on—the house, his pension, his precious Mercedes.

Except she didn’t want any of those things. What she wanted was her husband back.

Why?

Because she was used to having him around?
Because she didn’t like the idea of being a single mother, a lonely statistic, of sleeping alone night after night? Because she was afraid of growing old alone? Any or all of the above?

Or did she want him back so that she could do it right this time, so that she could be the one to walk out, the way she should have done years ago, when she was still relatively young, when she was still heart-stop-pingly beautiful, when she still had some pride? When was the last time she’d felt proud about anything? Except for Tracey, of course. The only thing in her life she’d managed to get right. Perhaps if she’d been able to have more children, if she’d been able to give him a son …

“What will we tell Tracey?” she asked, her voice a monotone.

“That we love her,” Ron said, sounding much too mature for a man who was leaving her for a girl half his age. “That my leaving won’t change that. That just because her parents can’t make it work—”

“Because her father can’t keep his dick in his pants!”

Ron’s face glowed an angry red as he glanced toward the nearby tables. Somewhere beside them, a woman tittered nervously. Ron lifted his napkin from his lap, threw it across his salad, rose to his feet. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“No. Please. Allow me.” Barbara jumped up from her seat and raced toward the washrooms in the far corner of the restaurant. She pushed open the heavy blue door, feeling it whoosh shut behind her. She leaned against it, took a series of long, deep breaths, gulping for air, as if she were drowning. A good
description, she thought with a crazed chuckle as she surveyed the walls of deep blue mosaic tiles, heard the trickling of water from the long waterfall that doubled as a sink. “He can’t be doing this,” she cried, hearing an embarrassed cough from inside one of the stalls.

Except that he was doing it. As always, Ron Azinger was doing exactly as he pleased. Yes, sir. It was business as usual, and she had no choice but to carry on with her life. She had to be strong, if not for herself, then for Tracey. Besides, she was hardly unattractive. There were plenty of other fish in the sea. “Fish in the sea,” she said out loud, as a burst of hysterical giggles escaped her throat. “Nothing like keeping with the theme.” She laughed again.