7. Cali
CALI
You'd think it would be easy.
I have everything I could ever need, all the dirty laundry to air. All that's left is to decide when and how to let it rip.
Honestly, I figured it would be the fun part. The sweet, vengeful dessert after three weeks of choking down the main course of betrayal.
But it turns out that deciding how to blow up your husband's life is harder than gathering the dynamite.
I spend all of Saturday ruminating on it. The kids are doing crafts at the kitchen table. Todd is on the couch watching golf with his feet up on my ottoman, shoes on inside the house, the bane of my existence.
And I sit there with my afternoon coffee going cold.
I could serve him papers. Cold and clinical. Have a process server show up at his office and hand him the divorce filing in front of his coworkers.
I could wait until Santorini, let him board the plane with Paula, then have his accounts frozen while he's somewhere over the Atlantic with no Wi-Fi and no way to fix it.
I could call Paula's family and rat her out.
I could call the school board and rat her out.
I could print every text message and wallpaper the city with them, one on every telephone pole and blank brick wall like I'm advertising Shakespeare in the Park.
Each option is satisfying in its own way. But none of them feel right. They aren't enough.
Because I don't just want Todd to lose. I want him to lose in a way he never saw coming.
I want him to feel the way I felt standing in that hotel bathroom in Phoenix, staring at a number that made no sense and feeling the abyss of Could This Really Be Happening opening up beneath him. I want him to hurt.
And I don't have that yet. I have the evidence, but I don't have the grand reveal.
So I sit there, percolating, while my coffee turns to sludge and Todd's dirty sneakers desecrate the ottoman my grandmother left me.
Maybe that's the issue. I just can't think in this house.
Not with him on my couch. He's all tied up in this place, ingrained into every fiber, and what I want is to imagine what my life will be like without him. I need to breathe some air that doesn't reek of Todd.
I stand up so fast my chair scrapes against the tile. Then I grab my keys off the counter, walk into the living room, and announce, "I'm going out."
Todd doesn't even bother to look up from the TV. "Out where? It's, like, five o'clock."
"I'm aware of what time it is."
He frowns, and for the first time all afternoon, takes his eyes off the game. "But… but what about dinner?" he asks.
"Figure it out," I say. "There's leftover marsala in the fridge. Or order something. You're a grown man."
"But what about—"
"I'll be back later."
As I loop my purse over my shoulder, I hear him say my name again, but I don't turn around. I just walk out and let the door close behind me.
It. Feels. Incredible.
I don't owe him an explanation. For ten years, I've narrated my every movement to that man. Not anymore. Tonight, I'm just walking out the door.
Figure it out, Todd.
I stand on the sidewalk for a second, breathing in the air, and I realize I have no idea where I'm going.
So I decide to spend his money.
Down in Chelsea, there's a boutique I've walked past a hundred times and never gone into. It's one of those places with a single dress in the window and no prices on anything, which does not bode well for Todd's wallet.
I always told myself that places like this were for other women. Thinner women. Women who didn't have stretch marks and a husband who called them curvy like it was a slur.
Today, I declare that I no longer give a shit. I walk right in, head held high.
A salesgirl who can't be older than twenty-five glides over. "Hi, ma'am! Can I help you find something?"
"I want a dress," I say. "Something that makes me feel dangerous."
She grins. "Now, you're speaking my language. Right this way."
Five minutes later, I'm standing in front of a three-way mirror in a little black dress that makes "dangerous" look like a dramatic understatement. It doesn't bother to hide anything. It hugs my hips, my thighs, my boobs, the soft curve of my stomach that grew two human beings.
I look at myself, and for the first time in I don't know how long, I don't take inventory of what I want to lose, all the mental nips and tucks I'd do if I could.
I just think, I look good.
"I'll wear it out," I tell the salesgirl.
At the register, the total makes my eyebrows go up, even now. Then I swallow, double down, and hand over Todd's credit card. When I get the receipt back, I sign the slip with a flourish.
"Thank you so much," the salesgirl says. "Have a wonderful night. I hope you get into exactly the right amount of trouble."
"Oh," I assure her, "I intend to."
I pick a lounge a few blocks over. It's a dimly lit ocean of crushed plum velvet, pressed tin ceiling, dominated by a bar in the middle that's a single slab of black marble veined with gold.
Edith Piaf murmurs from a speaker I can't locate.
The bartenders move like they've never once been in a hurry.
The air is rich with citrus peel, exotic smoke, dark, alluring, mysterious.
It smells like the exact opposite of Todd's Every Man Jack body wash, for which I've never been more grateful.
In here, I can breathe.
And even though I do get the inevitable, jittery frisson that comes to any woman out in the city on her own with uncertain intentions, all it takes is one big inhale and exhale for that anxiety to get flushed away.
I belong here. Tonight, anyway.
Besides, it's not like I'm looking for a hookup. I have no plans for anything like that. For one, it could jeopardize the upcoming divorce if Todd somehow could prove that I was unfaithful, too. And for another, it's just not the point.
I'm here to feel alive. To choose something for myself, on my own terms.
Men? They're a thing of my past, not of my present or future. As far as I'm concerned, the whole damn gender can take a long walk off a short bridge. Preferably sooner rather than later.
I slink in and take a seat at the bar.
"Good evening, miss," the bartender says. "What can I get you?"
"The absolute filthiest martini you've ever made," I say. "And a charcuterie board."
He smiles. "Coming right up."
As I wait for the drink and food, I look around.
The crowd is exactly what I expected from a place like this.
Beautiful people in a beautiful room. Good-looking men and women are draped all over each other, whispering flirtatious nothings in each other’s ears.
It's exposed thighs and plunging necklines, sharp suits and glittering watches.
They wear it all well and they look good together.
This space, this vibe, this moment. It's dark and sexy and undeniably alive.
And again—I want to be crystal clear, mostly to myself—I am not here for that. I'm not scanning for prospects, not by any means. I'm just sitting in a room full of people who know what they want and reach out and take it.
It's nice. Really.
Aspirational, even.
My martini arrives in a frosted glass, set on a classy black napkin embossed with the name of the lounge, two olives bobbing on a gilded toothpick.
The charcuterie board is on another piece of marble cut from the same chunk of rock as the bar.
Sliced cheeses, wafer-thin prosciutto, plump figs and a rich pot of oozing honey.
I didn't know snacks could be sexy. This place is proving me wrong.
I cut a slice of something soft and creamy and put it on a cracker and eat it slowly, and I sip the martini, and I sit there by myself, completely alone, and I feel like the most powerful woman in the entire city.
I'm learning that there's a kind of peace on the other side of the worst thing that's ever happened to you.
A clean, cold, gleaming peace.
I almost laugh out loud when I picture Todd at home, scratching his ass in his boxers, looking dumbfounded into the fluorescent depths of the refrigerator and using all of his brain cells to remember how to feed himself.
Am I being cruel? Probably. But it's not like he doesn't deserve it.
And even if he didn't, I don't care. I'm the Ice Queen tonight. Cold and gleeful, sitting on my throne, waiting for the kingdom to burn.
"You look like you're enjoying yourself."
I turn my head.
There's a man standing next to the empty stool beside me. Tall. Dark suit, no tie, top button open. He's got these eyes that don't quite smile when his mouth does.
"I am, actually," I reply.
"May I buy you a drink?"
I look at the martini in front of me, which is still almost full. "I've already got one."
"The next one, then."
I eye him. He's good-looking and clearly wealthy. I'm sure he's done this kind of thing before. Found a lone woman, bought her a drink, said what I'm positive will be several alluring and charming things, then taken her home to show her just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
But it's almost laughable how easy it is for me not to care about his attention.
Young me might've longed for it, for the validation that I was pretty and skinny and worthwhile.
And then for the last ten years, I've been happily married—or so I thought—and didn't pay any attention to men like this or the validation they give and withhold in order to get women out of their panties.
Now, when it'd be so easy and deserved to let myself get swept off my feet, I simply don't even care.
"You could buy me the next one," I agree. "But I should tell you, you'd be wasting your money. I'm not available."
He lets his left hand settle on the back of the empty stool. No wedding band, I notice, which I'm sure is the point of the gesture. "Married?"
I shrug. "Technically."
His mouth twitches at that. "That's not usually the sort of question that hinges on a technicality."
"Let's just say my husband is about to have a very bad year."
"Ah." He nods slowly. "So you're celebrating freedom."
"Something like that."