4
Not an hour later, the front door opened. “That was fast,” I called from the kitchen. I was relieved. If she didn’t pack much, she wasn’t staying long.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel and went toward the hall, running smack into Nancy as I rounded the corner.
“Ow,” I said, rubbing my forehead. She did the same.
“Hello to you too. Why is your husband living out of a suitcase at my house?”
I tried not to smile but couldn’t fully suppress the grin. Nancy was just so perfectly Nancy. Straight to the point.
“Come on,” I said. “I need your help hanging my new curtains.” Nancy was handier than most handymen, let alone our husbands.
“That does not answer my question. When did you cut your hair? It looks wonderful. What did he do?”
“Come help me, and I’ll explain.”
She turned and led the way toward my bedroom. “Why’d you get new curtains?” She stopped short at the door to the bedroom, taking in the stripped bed, curtainless windows, and half-peeled wallpaper. “Did he murder someone? Are you hiding the evidence? I’ll help you, of course, but I don’t want to be an accomplice to Larry.”
I grinned again. “I’ll stand on the chair, but I need you to hand me the curtains as I put them on the rod.”
“Your arms will fall off. Take the rods down and thread them through on the bed.”
I tapped my temple. “This is why I need your help.”
“You know who could help rehang them? Larry.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through my mouth. “How much did he tell you?”
“Nothing. He showed up with suitcases, and I told him if you kicked him out, I didn’t want to hear a word.” She hesitated. “He told Arnie you threw him out. I think Arnie knows more, but he didn’t tell me yet.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Arnie likely already knew about Linda. Apparently everyone did except me and Nancy. But if I told Nancy that I thought Arnie knew and I turned out to be right, then two marriages would fall apart. And as appealing as the idea of moving in together and raising our children like a commune was, we weren’t far enough from McCarthy to call it that.
“I went to bring him cookies at work and walked in on him with his secretary.”
“Is it possible it wasn’t what it looked like?”
The image flashed through my head. “No.”
“Maybe it was a one-off? You know how men are.”
I shook my head. “He said it’s been going on a while.”
“I told you when he hired her that it was a mistake. He needed someone who looked like Eleanor Roosevelt.” She had said that. But it never for a moment occurred to me that Larry would be unfaithful until I saw it with my own eyes. “So now he’ll fire her, you’ll pick the next one, and he’ll come home.” She was sitting on the bed, deftly threading the rod through the new curtains. “I like these. They’ll brighten up the room.”
“I ordered all new furniture and wallpaper too. You can help with the new bedspread next if you want to.”
“I wish Arnie would let me redecorate more. He always complains that I’m spending too much money.”
“Larry doesn’t know. He’ll find out when he gets the Woodies bill.”
Nancy looked at me a moment, then threw her head back in laughter, her blonde hair sprayed so heavily that it didn’t budge. “Oh, that’s smart! Maybe Arnie should have an affair so I can do the same. Larry can’t say a word now. And every day when he wakes up, he’ll remember how expensive it is to cheat.” Nancy hopped off the bed, a curtain done, and went to stand on the chair. “Pass me the rod. I’ll put it up.”
I handed it to her, admiring the pastel pink with mauve paisley as she popped the curtain into the bracket with ease. “It looks good,” I said.
“Fantastic. It’ll be even better when the wallpaper isn’t peeling off the walls.” Nancy climbed down and went to work on the second curtain rod. She always made herself right at home, but in the way women did. A man’s version of “at home” meant putting his feet up on the coffee table. If Nancy walked in while I was cooking, she’d set the table and make the sides. I sometimes thought she would explode if she ever sat still, and she probably talked in her sleep.
I stood a few feet from the window, studying the new curtains and thinking about what she had said. She and my mother both agreed he would be the perfect husband if I let him come home. I imagined him going on weekend adventures with me and the kids, swinging Debbie onto his shoulders at the zoo like he used to do with Robbie.
But the fantasy faded. Yes, I could likely scare Larry into fidelity with enough overspending and time sleeping on Nancy’s sofa. But what kind of marriage was that?
“I don’t want him to come home,” I said, still looking at the curtains, not sure if I was convincing her or myself.
“Well, not yet of course. You have to make him sweat more than a night or two on my couch.” She paused. “He’d better not actually sweat on my good couch.”
“I’ll take you shopping on his card for a new one if he does.”
Nancy laughed. “He can sweat away, then.”
I went to the corner where the blanket lay and pulled the new bedspread from the bag. “I mean, I don’t think I want him back at all.”
“You need to wash that before you put it on, or it’ll just be a wrinkly mess,” Nancy said. “I suppose you could just iron it, but probably best to wash it first.”
I sighed and tossed it to the floor. It would have to go in soon if I wanted it to be ready for bedtime tonight. “I mean it.”
Nancy put the curtain rod aside. “What does that mean? You want a divorce?”
I flinched slightly. My mother’s warning about being a merry divorcée rang in my ears. I knew two divorced women, and everyone acted like it was contagious. Nancy and I were just as guilty of that. “Are you still going to be my friend if I’m divorced?”
“No. I’d ignore you on the street.” She rolled her eyes. “What do you think?” She went back to the curtains. “Can I kick him out of my house too?”
“What will Arnie say?”
“When I come home and tell him how much happier you are without a husband? He’ll say whatever I want goes.” She reached out to touch the end of my new hair. “This does look great, by the way. Are you sure you don’t want to go blonde too? Drives Arnie wild.”
I did not want to picture Arnie going wild, with his comb-over and gut that he tried to hide by hiking his pants too high. “I think I’ll stay brunette for now. I don’t want to drive your husband wild.”
Nancy stood and dragged the chair to the other window. “Pass me the curtain rod, then go start the washer—unless you got a new dryer too, it’s going to take a while.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Might as well go get yourself some jewelry too. If you’re not going to take Marilyn Monroe’s advice about gentlemen preferring blondes, you can listen to her that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Other than me, that is.”
“Marrying a guy named Larry Diamond didn’t exactly prove that one true.”
“Wrong kind of diamond, clearly. But best do it now, before he can cut that card off.”
I admired the second set of curtains. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You really need new valances too. And did you get a dust ruffle to go with the new bedspread?”
“Not yet.”
“Back to the store tomorrow, then,” Nancy said, climbing off the chair and dusting off her hands. “You can always drop the kids at my house if you want them to see Larry without you having to.”
I wasn’t a crier. Most women would have shed a lake’s worth of tears over this whole situation. But at that offer, I felt an unfamiliar lump in my throat. “Thanks, Nance.”
She wrapped me in a quick hug. “What are non-diamond best friends for?”
“Oh, hello, Nancy,” my mother said from the doorway. “Beverly, darling, bring up my suitcases. I assume I’ll sleep in here with you until you clear out the guest room.”
Nancy looked at me, her eyes twinkling. “Oh, this just got much more interesting.” She kissed my mother on the cheek as she went to leave. “You take good care of our girl, Millie.”
My mother bristled slightly, though whether it was at the too-familiar use of her first name, the “our girl,” or the uninvited kiss, I did not know.
Nancy turned back at the doorway. “I’ll be back tomorrow to help you clear out that guest room,” she said with a wink.
“You’re going to need to wash that bedspread before we can sleep in here,” Mama said as Nancy’s footsteps echoed down the hall.
“Heading to do that now,” I said, gathering it in my arms.
“And don’t forget my suitcases!”
Larry might have gotten the better end of this deal sleeping on Nancy’s sofa.