Better Off Without Him (Romantic Comedy) Read online

  My Golden Retriever is named Fred, after Fred Astaire, because I watched…wait, you already know that. Golden Retrievers are America’s favorite pet because they are beautiful, loyal and good-natured. Fred is beautiful, loyal, etc., but he also has a brain the size of a dried lima bean and is constantly eating the girls’ underwear and then throwing them up all over my beautiful hardwood floors so I could then step on them and flatten them out so they looked like the Best Regency Romance Award I won in 1995.

  I returned from driving the girls to school, cleaned up the Fred mess and called Ben. I’m on a first-name, as well as know-all-his-kids-name, basis with my plumber, Ben Cutler. We first met when one of my three then-interchangeable daughters, all toddling and wreaking havoc, flushed several socks down the toilet, causing the entire sewage system of Westfield to back up into my downstairs powder room. Since then, he’s attended to several emergencies, as well as routine maintenance and upgrading activities. He’s charming, polite, and always apologetic when handing me the bill. He also has a network of other highly paid professionals listed in his little black book, so when plaster/wiring/flooring needs to be replaced as a result of his work, he just calls up a buddy and takes care of it for me. Brian had always maintained that there probably was a kick-back in there someplace, but I try not to think about it. Oh, and did I mention that Ben is probably one of the five most beautiful men on the planet? He’s a true inspiration.

  In Down To Desire, he was the mysterious and charismatic Devlin Montry, Earl of Northumberland. In Wednesday’s Lover, he was Philip Waters, the conflicted agent of the mysterious and dangerous Lord Buckingham. In Passion’s Eve, he was Sir Jon Allenby, wrongly convicted of treason and on the run from the King’s vengeful agents. Whenever I’m writing, I spend a lot of time thinking about Ben, usually in various states of undress. To be truthful, I spend a lot of time thinking about Ben even when I’m not writing. Then it becomes really distracting because, doing what I do for as long as I’ve been doing it, I tend to think of him in a romantic and historic context.

  Usually I get his machine, so I was pleasantly surprised when he answered his phone. Even his voice is delicious, very deep, with the hint of a southern drawl.

  “Ben, it’s Mona, your favorite customer.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. ‘You little fool,’ he said, his eyes glittering dangerously. ‘Don’t you know what you mean to me? Do you really think I’ve been keeping away from you because I want to?’ He pulled her close, his lips a breath away from her own. ‘Don’t you know that I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I’m alone with you?’

  “Is it the downstairs toilet again?” Ben asked.

  “No. The tub in the girls’ bathroom puked up some rust earlier.”

  “Ah. Puking rust.” He chuckled. “There’s a lot of that going around. I can come by after lunch, if you’ll be home.”

  “Yep. I’ll be here. See you later.”

  I hung up the phone and was drinking my fourth cup of coffee, seriously thinking about getting some writing done, when Brian came through the kitchen door. Brian is an accountant. He’s actually head of a department full of lots of other accountants, so he doesn’t actually do much debiting or crediting himself, but he still modestly calls himself an accountant, despite the CPA, MBA, six-figure salary and big corner office. He has a modest, self-effacing way about him that I’ve always liked. He doesn’t look like an accountant anymore. He still wears a suit and tie to work, but they are very expensive, well-cut suits with sexy ties and splashy -colored shirts. He’s a handsome guy for 53. Tall, still slender, and not much gray because he’s got that sandy blond colored hair, you know the color, that hides the gray really well until one day you look and say, oh my God, you’re old. He hadn’t gotten there yet. Something to look forward to, now.

  So I was sitting in my big, old-fashioned kitchen, glowing in the mixed warmth of sunshine and hot caffeine, talking to the cat. One of my pet peeves is that I will not allow my cat on my kitchen counter. Ever. I’m sure when I’m not around, she makes it a point to rumba her way from the sink to the fridge, but when I’m home, she sits on the bar stool next to me at the breakfast counter. She’s very good that way.

  I love my cat. She is pale orange and white and very fluffy, with big blue eyes and a tiny pink tongue. Her name is Lana. She is my favorite living being in the house, because although she pees and poops an incredible amount for such a small animal, she does it very neatly in a contained space, and sometimes spends as much as twelve minutes at a time sitting in my lap, purring in complete adoration. Well, maybe not adoration. Or, at least, not adoration of me. But she listens carefully to every word I say and never talks back. That alone elevates her to sainthood in my book.

  But – back to Brian. He came through the door. I was a little surprised. It was not an unheard-of occurrence, but mid-morning returns home were few and far between.“Hey, hot stuff, back so soon?” I was smiling. I really loved my husband.

  He shrugged. “Well, I left this morning just as the girls were screaming about a geyser in the bathroom, so I thought I might check it out. Still gushing?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Besides, I called Ben.”

  Brian had taken off his jacket and was leaning back against the counter. “Good. I like Ben. Nice guy. He coming by today?”

  “After lunch.”

  Brian made a face. “He’ll probably charge extra for the rush job. But he’s still a nice guy. He’s got kids, right?”

  “Boys. His oldest starts Yale next fall.”

  Brian threw back his head and laughed. “I bet when he got off the phone with you, he called his kid right away and told him to go ahead and sign up for the next semester.”

  I laughed with him. “Probably.”

  Brian was shaking his head. “Remember when Jess tried to see if her Barbie could swim and tried to flush the damn thing? Ben was laughing so hard he couldn’t get the damn wrench working.”

  “God, I’d forgotten that.”

  “A defense mechanism on your part, I’m sure. Usually you remember everything.”

  “Unlike you, who needs notes left on your shoes so you can remember which one goes on which foot,” I joked.

  Brian was grinning broadly. “God, you’re right about that. I have a hard time keeping track of so many things. In fact, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for weeks, and I just keep forgetting about it.”

  I sat up straighter, smiled, and tried the dutiful schoolgirl look. “Well, here we are, and you’ve obviously remembered, so shoot.”

  “Yeah. Well it’s actually the main reason I came back. I wanted to tell you when the girls weren’t here.”

  “Weren’t here?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want them to see me pack.”

  I was still smiling. “Pack what?”

  “My clothes. And my books. And everything. I’m leaving you, Mona. I’m very sorry. This is not about you, really. You’ve been a wonderful wife, but I’ve met someone else and I want to be with her. So, I’ll just pack up my things and go.”

  He said this all very calmly. He might have been explaining why the little referee man threw up one of those flag-thingies during a football game. I stared at him, trying to latch on to something that actually made sense.

  “You’re packing?” I repeated. I was looking at him. Then I looked at Lana, still sitting patiently beside me. She offered no suggestions, so I looked back at Brian. “Your clothes?”

  Brian cleared his throat and spoke very slowly. “Yes, Mona, I’m packing my clothes and moving out. I want a divorce.” Then he stood up and walked out of the kitchen.

  I looked at Lana again. She yawned. I followed my husband out of the kitchen and grabbed his arm as he started up the stairs. “Divorce? What are you talking about? Who did you meet? Where did you meet anybody? Except for your business trips, we go everywhere together. How could you meet someone?”

  Brian ran his hand through his hair
. “It’s a woman at work, Mona. Dominique.”

  “What?” Dominique? Was he crazy? There are no real women named Dominique.

  “You met her,” Brian continued. “At the Christmas party. She transferred down from Boston.”

  Wait. Yes. Now I remembered. Her name was Dominique because she was from France, where the name Dominique is not outrageously pretentious, but actually as common as Nicole or Emily or Shanique. She was also about fourteen years old and roughly the size and shape of a bamboo shoot. I remembered her, quite plainly, because at the Christmas party she was wearing an amazing winter-white suit that I had tried on at Nordstrom, but decided against buying because it made my butt look too big, with very chi-chi red alligator pumps.

  “Dominique with the accent? And the blonde hair? And red shoes? Are you kidding? You’re old enough to be her grandfather.”

  Brian looked insulted. “She’s thirty, Mona.”

  “Thirty? You’re leaving me for a thirty-year-old bimbo?”

  Brian pulled away from me and started up the stairs. “She is anything but a bimbo. She has an MBA from Georgetown. She actually interned at the White House.”

  “So did Monica Lewinsky,” I yelled. “You can’t leave me.”

  Brian turned on the stairs and looked down at me. Literally and figuratively. “I am leaving you, Mona. I’ve already spoken to a lawyer. You have a great deal of your own money, but I will be very generous. I’m not going to be a jerk about this. You can have the house and kids.”

  He turned back and marched upstairs. I stood there, watching him, feeling like a total loser. Then I screamed up to him at the top of my lungs.

  “But I don’t want the house and kids.”

  When Brian came back downstairs twenty-seven minutes later, I was calm. I was rational. I was the perfect Model of Wife.

  Things happened in a marriage. I knew that. And since I’d once been in therapy for eighty-three days, I knew that I could be a challenging person to live with.

  I knew that there could be issues in a marriage that go completely unnoticed by a preoccupied spouse. I watch enough Dr. Phil to realize that things may have been going on that I was totally unaware of. Like that woman who didn’t know that her husband was actually a cross-dresser until she threatened to sue her dry cleaner for all her missing clothes, and the poor guy had to confess. So, it’s possible that there had been a blip on the radar that I didn’t pick up on. I’m a big person. I can admit my mistakes. And I was perfectly willing to do whatever it took to get my marriage back to where I thought it was, say, oh, two hours before.

  Brain was carrying all three of his suitcases, and he dumped them in the foyer. I opened my mouth to speak, but he went back upstairs. I waited. He came back down, this time with my suitcases.

  I narrowed my eyes. Did he really have that many clothes? “Those are mine,” I said, trying to keep a possessive snarl out of my voice.

  He nodded. “I know. I’ll bring them back tonight.”

  “You’re coming back tonight?” Was I surprised? Confused? Pleased?

  “Well, yes. I think we should tell the girls together.”

  “Together? You want us to tell our daughters together that you’re moving out to be with another woman?”

  Brian looked uncomfortable for the first time. “Yes. Well, I think they need to hear the explanation from both of us.”

  “But both of us aren’t leaving,” I pointed out. “You’re leaving. You’re leaving because you’re screwing a woman almost half your age. How can I possibly explain that when I don’t even understand it myself?”

  See, I was calm. No screeching.

  He cleared his throat. “Now, Mona, I can’t take the total responsibility for this.”

  That may have been the wrong thing for him to say. “And how, exactly, am I at fault?”

  “Well, let’s face it. Our marriage hasn’t been the same these past few months.”

  I think at that moment I forgot all about being a big person. The entire un-noticed-blip-that-I-should-have-seen theory went out the window. “You’re right. Apparently, for these past few months, one of us has been unfaithful.”

  “Well, yes, but before that, things were, ah, you know…” He looked at me hopefully. Like I was actually going to let him off the hook.

  “Before that you and I spent a week in Aruba where we had monkey sex for six days in a row. Before that we talked about your coming with me to San Francisco this summer. We’ve been planning your sister’s surprise fiftieth birthday party, which, I believe, is still scheduled for three weeks from next Saturday.” I could feel the blood rising, and I fought the urge to scream. Had he actually thought I should admit mistakes? Was he crazy??? “Two months ago you bought me a diamond necklace for our twentieth wedding anniversary.” I took a few deep breaths. “So tell me. When, in the past few months, was I supposed to figure out that things were, ah…you know?”

  Brain shook his head sadly. “I’m going to take these out to the car.” He picked up some suitcases and went out the front door. I sat down on our hall bench, gripping my knees with my sweaty palms. My eyes came to rest on our wonderfully quaint umbrella stand, an antique made to look like an elephant’s foot, and I thought briefly about running him through with my Monet umbrella from the New York Metropolitan Museum Store. I probably couldn’t kill him with an umbrella, unless he agreed to lie down while I repeatedly stabbed him in the eye with it. My eyes moved to the cute bulldog door-stop. Also antique. Cast iron. Weighed a frigging ton. Capable of inflicting severe, possibly fatal damage. It was so heavy, one good swing would probably do it. It was so heavy, however, I probably couldn’t lift it high enough to hit him anywhere but on the foot.

  He came back in to get the rest of his suitcases. My suitcases, actually. Could I call the police and report missing luggage? Would they actually arrest him for it? Now, there was a plan. What foreign woman, probably fishing for a green card or something similar, would want to associate with a convicted tote-bag felon? Why should I go to jail for murder when I could just as easily send him to jail for petty theft?

  “I’m going now,” Brian said. I had been so lost in the vision of my apparently soon-to-be-ex-husband in an orange jumpsuit that I didn’t hear him come back in. He was looking down at me, actually smiling. “I’ll be back around dinner. I’ll talk to the girls.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To Dominique’s,” he said easily. “She has a condo in Hoboken, so I’ll be close to work. And the girls, of course. I’ll have my lawyer call your lawyer.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer,” I whined.

  “You’ll find somebody competent. Ask around. I’m not worried, Mona. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Brian patted me on the head. Really. Can you believe it? Then he walked out the door.

  I was so angry. Really outraged that he could so serenely walk out and leave behind a life and children and a dog and a cat. And I felt betrayed. I mean, there were vows taken. Love. Honor. Cherish. Till death. I wasn’t dead yet.

  I was also highly insulted that a person such as myself, attractive, intelligent, successful, respected in the community, great mother and one hell of a cook, could be so easily be replaced by a woman who was merely blond, foreign, and who may or not have blown the president.

  What I did not feel, and I only realized it long afterward, was broken-hearted.

  Chapter Two

  The phone rang a few moments after Brian left. I have telephones in every room, and all the phones have caller ID, so I merely had to lean over from where I was sitting, hunched on the front hall bench, to see that Westfield High School was calling. That was not a good sign. But it was what I needed to pull me out of the pool of self-pity I was rapidly digging for myself.

  “Mrs. Berman?” a man’s voice asked after I said hello. “This is Vice Principal Arnold.”

  He didn’t need to tell me who he was. Sadly, I recognized his voice from several previous phone calls.

  “Yes, Mr. Arno
ld. What did Jessica do this time?”

  Now, some parents with multiple offspring may not automatically assume that one child is more worth a phone call from the assistant principal than any of the others, but other parents don’t have a Jessica. While her elementary and middle school careers might have been relatively undistinguished, she hit high school with an agenda. So far, in a few short months, she had incited her English class to walk out in protest of the banning of certain books in the library, managed to flip a calculator into the air, accidentally of course, but at her geometry teacher, narrowly missing him but apparently damaging the calculator beyond repair, and had been permanently forbidden to use the upstairs annex of the library. So there was a little history here for me to go on.

  “Actually,” Mr. Arnold said, “it’s not Jessica.”

  “Miranda? Did she get caught smoking again? Or was it about the missing trigonometry book? She swore to me-“

  “Mrs. Berman,” Mr. Arnold said firmly, “it’s Lauren.”

  My heart stopped. I think, although there’s been no scientific evidence produced so far to back me up, that the entire earth paused for just a moment on its axis.

  “Lauren?” I whispered in disbelief.

  “Yes.”

  “Is she okay?” My heart was pounding.

  “She’s fine, but there has been an incident and another student is involved. It’s complicated. I’ll explain when you get here.”

  I slammed down the phone, hand shaking. Lauren? I ran and grabbed my purse, slammed the back door behind me, hopped into Johnson and sped out of the driveway.

  Normally, I can walk to the high school. It’s several blocks away, but they are lovely, tree-lined blocks, with wide sidewalks and gracious homes, and I love the walk. Downtown Westfield, which is in the other direction, is another lovely walk. But today, I whizzed past Tudors and Victorians, blinded to everything but the gray pavement before me. Lauren?