Once More with Feeling (6 page)

“Bah-nee!” a high-pitched voice suddenly screeched.

Laura glanced up. She saw that the little girl was pointing gleefully at the purple dinosaur behind her.

“Yes!” her adoring mother gushed loudly. “That’s right, Brittany! That
is
Barney! Good for you!”

Laura cleared her throat once again. “ ‘Not long ago, in a jungle—’ ”

“I want to hug Bah-nee!” Goldilocks was already rushing onto the stage, her sticky fingers stretching toward the wooden model of the hottest TV celebrity since Big Bird.

“Isn’t it past her bedtime?” Laura muttered through clenched teeth.

But the little girl had already climbed up onto the platform, right behind Laura. She grabbed hold of the purple figure, throwing her pudgy arms around its neck. “Bah-nee! Bah-nee!”

“Now, Brittany, you shouldn’t run away like that.” Brittany’s mom, looking more proud than annoyed, crossed the stage in front of Laura to retrieve her bouncing baby girl. “We have to be polite to the lady who’s reading us the nice story.”

My
story, Laura thought petulantly.
I
wrote it, Brit.

She was about to cast them both a scathing look when she remembered that another five pairs of eyes were watching her. Instead, she did her best to smile indulgently at little Brittany, now wailing at the top of her lungs as her mother dragged her away from her dino love.

“Let’s see, where was—oh, yes.” One more time, Laura cleared her throat. “ ‘Not long ago, in a jungle far, far away, there lived a giraffe named Gertrude. As all the animals knew, Gertrude was very good at—

“Attention, book lovers!” the loudspeaker suddenly blared. “Tonight Book Bonanza is pleased to announce that we’re taking an extra twenty-five percent off all Stephen King novels. The supply is limited, so hurry over.”

A restlessness instantly arose in the audience. Glancing up, Laura saw the two fathers exchange nervous looks.

“ ‘As all the animals knew, Gertrude was very good at solving mysteries. Everyone—including Helena Hyena.”

The shuffling of feet and the scraping of chair legs against the linoleum floor caused Laura to look up one more time. The two dads were wandering off, the adventures of good-natured Helena Hyena proving to be no match for those of Stephen King’s demonic characters. Sheepishly they slunk away, taking with them three quarters of the audience.

Laura surveyed the half circle of chairs, now empty except for Brittany and her mom. She was about to beg off when the woman raised her hand.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you think instead of reading that book, you could read one that has Barney in it?”

* * * *

By the time Laura put her autographing pen away, she’d decided that the winner of the contest for tonight’s reward would have to be Haagen-Dazs. After this ordeal, only something with nuts, chips, and a three-digit fat-gram count would do.

As she zipped up her purse she became aware that someone was standing in front of her. She glanced up, expecting Jennifer.

“Ms. Briggs?” a woman about Laura’s age asked shyly.

“Yes?”

“I wasn’t sure if it was really you. I mean, the sign said you’d be here tonight, and, of course, I recognized your book on that poster over there. . . . But I could hardly believe I’d actually have the chance to meet you in person.”

Laura just blinked.

“You see, all three of my children are big fans of yours. Of course, the two older girls are reading chapter books now. But David still can’t get enough of Gertrude and Carol. In fact, promising to read your books is the only way I can get him into bed.”

Tentatively the woman handed over a well-worn copy of Laura’s first book, along with spanking-new copies of the two latest ones. “If you’d be kind enough to sign these for my children, I know they’d be absolutely thrilled.”

Laura reached for the books. “I’d love to.”

Maybe I’m not a wife anymore, she thought as she opened the book on top. But at least I’m still a writer.

Chapter Four

“Today, Laura Briggs Walsh, well-known author of more than a dozen children’s books, was charged with first-degree murder at her home in Clover Hollow, an upscale suburb on Long Island’s north shore. The victim: her husband, forty-five-year-old Roger Walsh.”

The newscaster is speaking earnestly into a video camera, trying her best to look dignified as she stands in the middle of Laura’s front lawn, strewn with roller skates, Roller Blades, a bicycle, and half a dozen other artifacts of an eight-year-old boy’s
life.

Laura takes a moment to wish she’d gotten on Evan’s case about picking up after himself as she’s led out the back door by a police officer. The video cameras are still whirring. She tries, unsuccessfully, to shield her face with the collar of her raincoat, the one she’s been meaning to bring to the dry cleaner for weeks. Photographers from all the Long Island and New York papers are there.
The New York Times. Newsday.
Even the local edition of 
The Pennysaver.
Flashbulbs explode in her face.

“She’s an animal!” cries one of the dozens of onlookers, a man in an undershirt and drooping jeans who’s brandishing his beer can.

“She’s not an animal,” counters a woman clutching a bag of groceries. “She’s a woman who needs a good lawyer! “

“She was merciless!” someone else cries.

“All she wanted was her just revenge,” claims the woman.

Laura can remain silent no longer. “I didn’t mean to kill him!” she cries. “It just happened! One minute I was arranging the steak knives in the drawer, and the next thing I knew
—

* * * *

“Mo-o-o-om!” Evan’s whiny voice pulled her out of her nightmarish reverie. ‘Today’s gym, and I can’t find any clean sweatpants.”

For once, Laura was actually glad for the excuse to drag herself out of bed. Not that the fantasy she’d been spinning as she lay in bed was entirely rooted in fiction. Today she was making her initial foray into the world of the legal jungle. The day before, she’d made an appointment with a lawyer. A
divorce
lawyer. She’d dialed three times before she was able to keep herself from hanging up. It was such a monumental step. Such a definitive step. Above all, such a final step.

The fact that Irwin Hart had been Claire’s lawyer bothered her, too. Laura’s instincts told her that following Claire’s recommendation for anything would be like borrowing one of her Lycra miniskirts: it would turn out to be much too much for Laura. Still, with no other ideas about whom to try, she’d decided to check him out.

She felt as if she were about to sneak off on a secret mission as she slapped peanut butter and jelly on white bread for Evan’s school lunch and tried to carry on a meaningful discussion about why the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles no longer held the same cachet they once had. Through it all, Roger remained silent. He sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and looking sullen. Laura tried to quell her irritation—with him, of course, and with the fact that despite her decision to get out of her marriage, she was still living with the same husband in the same house, with the same anger gnawing away at the half-chewed bagel sitting in her stomach—by reminding herself that things weren’t that different from what they’d been all along. On the upside, she realized that her days of breakfasting with a hostile, brooding husband were numbered.

She was standing in front of the mirror in Irwin Hart’s reception area, looking with dismay at the sad, tired face staring back at her, when she remembered that this wasn’t just any day. Today was her fifteenth wedding anniversary.

She was supposed to be buying champagne. Wrapping either a cappuccino maker or a bathrobe in colorful gift paper. Maybe even plotting a few surprises for the bedroom: reintroducing candles, perhaps, or even throwing caution to the wind and removing her socks. Instead, she was taking a mental inventory of their possessions, struggling to remember who’d originally owned the collection of Byrds albums, agonizing over who was entitled to the margarita glasses.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Laura watched her face crumple. “Oh, my God,” she cried. “This is really happening!”

Even in her despair, she found herself thinking back, appreciating the tragedy of her marriage’s end but not for a minute glossing over the realities that had brought her to this point. Today, on her wedding anniversary, she couldn’t help but remember where she’d been fifteen years earlier.

Maybe planning and executing the wedding hadn’t been enough to tip her off. But from where she now stood, Laura realized that the honeymoon should have opened her eyes to the fact that marrying Roger Walsh had been a bad choice in me cosmic game of Let’s Make a Deal.

* * * *

“If this is what it feels like to be married, I’m going to love being a wife.” Reaching across the front seat of the car, Laura placed her hand on Roger’s thigh. When he rewarded her with a contented purr, she settled back in her seat, taking care not to spill the glass of lukewarm champagne she’d been nursing ever since they’d crossed the border into Canada.

This, she was certain, was sheer bliss: the two of them trundling down a country road in the vintage Volkswagen bug they’d borrowed from Dirk, the silhouettes of peace signs and oversized daisies still visible in bright sunlight. The late-afternoon sun beamed down approvingly, and while the champagne could easily have passed for a Woollite wash, the idea of drinking something French in broad daylight was even more intoxicating than the alcohol. Then there was the scenery. Here a barn, there a cow ... Their surroundings were so pastoral it was difficult to believe they were less than an hour from Toronto, their destination for an intensive five-day training program for the marriage business.

A Canadian honeymoon had been her idea. A trip up north contained the exotic elements of a foreign vacation without such annoyances as passports, phrase books, and astronomical Visa bills. She was looking forward to tackling a new city armed with comfortable shoes, a good guidebook, and unwavering enthusiasm. Even more, she was filled with anticipation over the prospect of trying on the mantle of
wife
in neutral territory. It would take time to get used to the idea of traveling with a partner, not only through another country, but more important, through her own life.

When she and Roger had climbed into the car at dawn, they’d both been excited. The icing on the cake was finding the bon voyage present Claire had left on the backseat: a huge wicker basket containing crackers, cheeses, chocolates, and a modest-sized bottle of icy champagne. Also tucked into the tissue paper was a pair of tulip glasses. One sported a tiny black bow tie, the other a white satin ribbon.

“I hope the hotel’s nice.” Laura slid her fingers across Roger’s leg. ‘Then again, as long as our room has a big, comfortable bed, I guess the rest doesn’t matter much.”

Suddenly the Volkswagen lurched. The car shuddered and the engine lost power. Laura automatically assumed that the provocative dip her stroking fingers had just taken was responsible. But then the car veered off to the side of the road. Anxiously she glanced over at Roger. His expression was dark.

“Damn!” he barked, slapping the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “I told Dirk to have this stupid car checked out before we took it on such a long trip.”

Laura dropped her hand primly into her own lap. “Why didn’t he?”

Roger grimaced. “He probably didn’t have the cash.”

“Gee, and he gave us such a generous wedding present,” Laura commented dryly. The Ziploc bag containing three ounces of marijuana had been left at home, along with the hand-crocheted coasters and the silver ice bucket engraved with a monogram that ignored Laura’s decision to keep her own name. “Now what?”

Roger sat slumped behind the wheel, his arms folded across his chest. “We sit back and hope the Canadian people are friendly.”

While Laura couldn’t vouch for the entire population, the aging farmer who pulled his dusty pickup truck alongside and asked if they could use a hand was certainly helpful. The driver of the tow truck was downright palsy-walsy. As for the proprietor of Cyril’s Auto Repair, he was grinning like a jack-o’-lantern as they said good-bye, leaving him their disabled vehicle.

“Look at it this way,” Roger said with uncharacteristic cheerfulness as they stood on the corner in front of a scone shop, waiting for a bus. “We’ve already gotten to see a part of Toronto most tourists never get to see.”

The Royal York Hotel was not only nice; it embodied the kind of old-world elegance and charm that Laura had only experienced in Edith Wharton novels. She was almost able to forget about the Great Auto Disaster that evening as she lay back in an oversized bathtub beneath a mound of scented bubbles. She hoped that while she was untying knots in muscles she hadn’t even known she possessed, Roger was turning back the bedspread, spraying on deodorant, and carrying out all the other preparations a groom on his honeymoon would be apt to make. So when she heard him speaking through the closed bathroom door, she sat up and listened.

“Hello? This is room seven-eighteen. I’d like to order movie number three.... Uh, I believe it’s called
The Harder They Come...
.”

Dripping bubbles all over the floor, Laura went to the bathroom doorway, a towel concealing as much of her body as possible.

“Roger?” she demanded, incredulous. “What are you doing?”

He glanced up at her, his hand covering the receiver of the telephone. “Just ordering up some entertainment. I figured—Yes, I’m here. Eight o’clock sounds fine. Go ahead and bill it to the room.”

“Roger, I don’t think—”

Before she could manage to say more, the telephone rang. She hoped it was the front desk, informing them that due to technical difficulties, the wayward cheerleaders or stewardesses or whomever room seven-eighteen had ordered would be unavailable. Instead, it was Cyril.

“Whoooo,” Roger breathed into the phone, his back turned to Laura. “That much, huh?”

“What did he say?” she demanded, perching on the edge of the bed. By then, she’d abandoned the idea of a long, hot soak in the tub. Instead, she was pulling clothes over her still damp limbs.