Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (10 page)

“Yes, thanks.”

She’s got a regular Starbucks franchise going here, I thought

and picked up a copy of
People.
The buzzer of her telephone

intercom rang and she picked it up.

“Yes, Ms. Stoney. I will.”

That was the moment I started coming unglued. My hands

became clammy and my tongue got thick.

“Mrs. Hayes? Ms. Stoney will see you now. Please follow

me.”

I followed her down the short hall, our steps muffled by the

thick carpet, past a research library with two paralegals working

away on computers, past a powder room and a small kitchen.

Her double doors opened and there she stood.

“Thanks, Donna.” The receptionist turned and left. “I’m

Michelle Stoney, Mrs. Hayes.” She shook my hand soundly and

motioned for me to enter.“Would you like something to drink?

Coffee?”

She had perfect teeth, had to be laser bleached. I guessed her

age to be about forty-eight. Her dark hair was pulled back at the

nape of her neck and secured by one of the most beautiful tor-

toiseshell clasps I’d ever seen.

“Please, call me Susan,” I said, voice shaking a little. “No,

thanks, too hot for coffee.”

I took a seat in front of the desk and she sat next to me in

the matching tub chair. She wore a plain Rolex that showed

from the cuff of her navy pinstripe coatdress. She was downright

pretty in a buttoned-up kind of way.

“Would you like a Diet Pepsi? I have a ton of them in my

fridge.”

“Yes, thanks,” I said, heartened by her choice in soft drinks,

“that’d be great.”

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

I dropped my purse at my feet, and my cigarettes fell out on

the Persian rug between our chairs. She saw them and her eyes

brightened.

“Oh! Do you smoke?”

I blanched at my bad habit and she continued.

“I haven’t had a cigarette in ages,” she said, “gave it up, but

every now and then . . .”

“Please! Help yourself !” I offered her the pack and dug

around for my lighter.“I’m always quitting and then I start again,

and then the next thing you know . . . well, you know how it is.”

She pulled out a huge crystal ashtray from her bottom

drawer and we were in business.We torched two low-tar death

sticks and popped open two cans of frosty chemicals. She was

obviously a woman of extraordinary taste. I began to tell her the

whole miserable saga. I watched her eyebrows narrow as she

took notes.

“Do you remember the exact date?” she asked.

“Yes. Wednesday, April twenty-eighth. I was supposed to

give a presentation at two o’clock on a literacy program with

day care for unwed mothers. Stupidly, I had left the whole mess

in a folder on the kitchen counter that morning. When I went

through my briefcase, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t there. I had

worked half the night on the darn thing.”

“We all forget things.”

“True. Anyway, it was about eleven o’clock and almost

lunchtime. I told my secretary that I was going to run home and

I’d be back as fast as possible. I took my car and drove down to

Queen Street, where we live. I was going to grab the folder and

hurry back. I came in the back door and dropped my bag on the

floor by the stairs and heard somebody upstairs. I thought, Oh,

God, there’s a robber in the house! I reached for the poker from

the fireplace, shaking all over.”

“I’m sure you were terrified!”

“I was! But I listened for a moment and heard their voices.At

first I thought it was Beth with some boy, and started sneaking up

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

57

the steps, thinking I’d kill whoever would dare to do something

to my little girl!”

“How old is your daughter?”

“Thirteen, almost fourteen.”

“Not so young, these days.”

“In a pig’s eye, but anyhow, when I got to the top of the stairs

I heard the voices coming from my room. I couldn’t believe that

she’d do something like this in my room!”

“Sort of the ultimate rebellion, right?”

“Exactly. Then all of a sudden it hit me. It wasn’t Beth but

Tom. I could hear whoever this woman was saying stuff like

‘Oh! Tom! Ride me! Yes! My tiger!’ Can you imagine?”

“Dear God.What did you do?”

“The stupidest thing possible. I opened the door and caught

them! Why did I do that?”

“I probably would’ve done the same thing. It’s that unstop-

pable desire to disprove what you know, right?”

“I guess.Anyway, he stopped giving her what was mine long

enough to turn around and see me. She sat up and saw me, then

rolled over and covered her head with a pillow. I guess she

thought I was gonna hit her with the poker, which I nearly did.

She screamed, ‘Oh, no!’ And he said, ‘What the hell are you

doing here?’ I said, ‘I live here.’ Right away, I started explaining

what and why, and then I thought, What the hell am I doing?

He’s in the bed with this slut—in
our
bed, no less—and he’s the

one who should be apologizing, not me!”

“So what happened?”

“I went downstairs and waited for him, but he left with

her.”

“That probably made you feel pretty bad.”

“Yeah, you could say that. I was so numb and ill that I

couldn’t go back to work. So I did what women do in times of

trial.” She looked up at me and I said,“I started cleaning every-

thing in sight.”

“Classic,” she said.

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

“Right. About two-thirty he showed up again, probably

thinking that I’d be back at work and he wouldn’t have to deal

with me. But I was in the kitchen, still cleaning. When I asked

him how he could do this to me, to himself, to our families, do

you know what he said? He told me he was sorry I had caught

them. Not that he was sorry he wrecked our life! He packed

some stuff and left. Just like that.”

I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t ask about the Aramis bottle

filled with eau de whiz—I had never told anyone about that.

Even I knew it was over the top. But I was surprised she didn’t

remark on the toothbrush story because by now everyone in

Charleston knew about that. I guess I bragged a little and word

got out. In fact, people stopped me on the street and in the gro-

cery store to ask me if it was true. That single peanut-sized

episode of revenge had elevated me to something of a cult hero

among the jilted women of Charleston. I continued to spill the

family juice without even worrying about whether or not she

intended to take my case.

“So then I was so upset that I started helping him pack.

While he was stacking all his shirts and suits into his hanging

bag, I went into the bathroom and dumped a lot of his stuff out

of the medicine cabinet. I took his toothbrush and looked at it

for a minute and then I scrubbed the toilet with it. Good, too, all

under the rim, everywhere.Then I dropped it in his shaving kit.”

Even though Michelle was grinning from ear to ear, experi-

ence made me stop.

“Ms. Stoney . . .”

“Michelle, please . . .”

“Michelle, my husband thinks he is the Perry Mason of

Charleston and that no one will represent me against him. If this

is a problem for you, I guess this is when you should tell me.”

“Susan? I hope you’ll pardon me for saying this, but your hus-

band is a big fat skunk first, and a lawyer second. I’ll handle this

for you with pleasure.” Michelle smiled, leaned back in her chair

and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling.“You have

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

59

to do two things: try to the best of your ability to document all

contact you have with him from this moment on. Does he show

up when he’s supposed to? Is he hostile? That sort of thing.Then,

itemize your expenses the best you can. Keep a good journal.”

“I can do that. I used to do that all the time. I like you,

Michelle. I trust you.”

“You can trust me better than your own mother.”

“You know, I heard he’s living with her. She’s twenty-three

and has breast implants. He’s practically a pedophile.”

“Good grief.”

“I know I shouldn’t dwell on it, but I still can’t believe I

found them together. Calling out his name at the top of her

squeaky, insipid little lungs, and him yelling back,‘Yes! Yes!’ Infu-

riating! Can you imagine how I felt? How will I ever get that

image out of my head? I’d like to kick his butt the whole way to

California.”

“We can do that without even changing shoes.The question

is, where are we heading here? Is there any desire on your part

or his for reconciliation?”

“It’s not possible.”

“You’re absolutely sure about that?”

“Yes. I’ve dissected this thing to death, and you know what

I haven’t even told my sister?”

“Tell me.”

“Tom stopped loving me years ago. I don’t know how we

stayed together as long as we did. But, now I’m sure of this, I

don’t want the kind of marriage where my husband thinks he’s

stuck with me, especially given his preference for young nympho-

maniacs. Part of it is surely my fault. I mean, when I look back, I

remember many times when I could’ve tried harder. I just didn’t.

I don’t even know why. I was probably too tired from running

the house, working full-time and taking care of our daughter to

cite chapter and verse from
The Joy of Sex,
you know what I

mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

“Oddly, he never complained. I guess that’s when he found

Karen. I understand that a lot of men do these things when they

get around fifty, but he didn’t have to do it in our house, in our

bed. If I hadn’t come home to get my presentation papers, I

never would’ve known, although I think men who screw their

little girlfriends in their own home have a secret desire to be

caught.”

“Maybe. I don’t know, but I’ve heard that said.”

“Anyway, our marriage has been in rigor mortis for ages. I

guess I thought that eventually things would go back to being

good again. We’d been through ups and downs like everyone.

But that’s not what happened. I resented being expected to do

everything. And he resented me resenting him. We didn’t talk;

we swam the River Sarcasm. And worse, our silence was the

smoldering kind. He didn’t like the way I looked anymore, even

when I tried to change my looks. He just didn’t want me any-

more. I didn’t fit his fantasy.”

“Fit his fantasy?”

“Yeah, I have this theory that you marry your fantasy.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, it goes like this: He dies for women with a big

bosom, you have a big bosom, he dies for you. He falls apart for

big blue eyes and a wicked meat sauce, you make an incredible

Bolognese and, kaboom, he looks in your blue eyes and he’s

yours forever, until you burn his meatballs, no pun intended.”

“Of course not.”

“Anyway, I don’t fit his fantasy anymore and I probably

never will again.”

“Not fitting someone’s fantasy is hardly grounds for infi-

delity.”

She was right. It wasn’t funny. It was sobering.

“My family has lived in this city for over two hundred years

and he’s humiliated me in front of every single person I know,”

I said. “Every time I turned around there was someone I’ve

known all my life either whispering when they saw me coming

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

61

or dying to tell me that they’d see Tom and Karen out and

about. I don’t know what I ever did to him for him to hurt me

so. Maybe I wasn’t the perfect wife, but I deserved better than

this.And, if that’s not bad enough, he refuses to give me what he

should in financial support.That’s really why I decided I had to

get legal help.”

I was babbling like the white water in the Colorado River.

“Yes, tell me about that. Has he been sending you money

once a month? Or do you have to go to him?”

“At first, I guess he felt guilty about leaving, so he just left

the checking account as it was and I paid the bills from money

he deposited.That’s over now. He hasn’t made a deposit in two

months. Now he’s got this new idea in his head that he’ll con-

tribute to our support, but I can’t live any better than he does. Is

that legal? I mean, do I have to sell my house if he decides to live

in a one-bedroom apartment?”

“No. Under South Carolina law, you’re entitled to more

than that. How long were you married?”

“Sixteen years.”

“And have you contributed in any way to his business?”

“I’d say so. I supported us while he went to law school

at Carolina. I’ve certainly grilled enough steaks for clients and

partners.”

“Hmm, that’s good. Could I trouble you for one more

cigarette?”

“Of course! Help yourself !”

I liked this woman.A lot. She was going to help me negoti-

ate the next twenty years of my life and Beth’s future as well.

“Thanks. Have you always lived in your home on Queen

Street?”