Authors: Danielle Steel
“Why is it that I have the feeling I'm not going to like what you're about to say?” Tanya said with a knot in her stomach. Peter looked down at his feet as he leaned over and played with some pebbles on the ground, and when he sat up again, she saw that he looked pained.
“I don't know what to say to you. I think you know anyway. I never thought this would happen. I still don't know how it did or why. But it did, Tan.” He was trying to make it fast and as painless as he could, but as he started, he realized that there was no way. It was going to be awful, whatever he did or said. “Alice and I got back together when she was sick, while she had radiation. I know it sounds crazy, but I think I want to marry her. I love you, it's not even about your being in L.A., or your not coming home for the past month. I think this would have happened anyway. I have the feeling it was meant to be.” She felt as though he had hit her with an ax. Her guts felt sliced in two. Her head was spinning, and her heart was somewhere in her shoes. She stared at him in disbelief.
“That simple? It's over? I haven't seen you in five weeks, and you decide that you and Alice were meant to be? How the hell did you come to that conclusion?” She was almost as angry as she was hurt.
“I realized how much I love her when she was sick. She needs me, Tan. I'm not sure you do. You're a strong woman. She isn't, and she's been through a lot of shit. She needs someone to take care of her.”
“Oh God …” Tanya leaned back against the bench, and closed her eyes. She couldn't even cry this time. Her body and mind hurt too much to even produce tears. She felt as though she were in shock. With all her suspicions, she had worried that he was sleeping with her, not that he was going to marry her, or decide it was “meant to be.” Tanya couldn't get her mind around the concept yet and wondered if she ever would. “I wrote a segment of a soap like this once. The producer thought it was too cheesy, so he made me cut the scene. Little did I know I'd be living it one day. Life imitating art, or some shit like that.” She stared at him in disbelief. “What's all that crap about my being so strong, and Alice needing you? Alice is a lot tougher than I. I think she set you up, Peter. She decided she wanted you, and she set out to get you the minute my back was turned. I think she's a lot stronger than you think.” He was so goddamned naéve, and they were both such shits. It was all Tanya could think. The fact that her life, such as she had known it for twenty years, was about to go out the window seemed much less important now than the fact that she had been totally betrayed by two people she loved, especially Peter. She felt set up, lied to, and betrayed by both of them. For the second time in three months. Maybe that was what he meant by “meant to be.” She felt “meant to be” screwed over by both of them. They had done a hell of a good job.
“So that's it?” Tanya asked as tears finally sprang to her eyes. They were long overdue. “It's over. You want out. You're going to marry her? What are you planning to tell our kids? That you're just moving next door, a simple change of address? How convenient for you.” She sounded bitter, and she had reason to be.
“She loves our kids,” he said, hating the way Tanya looked. He had watched the blood drain out of her face. He had been waiting to tell her for two weeks. Once he and Alice got back together, they were sure, especially while he took her to her radiation treatments every day. He hadn't said anything about it to Tanya on the phone. He knew what she had thought. And she had been right once again.
“Yes, she does love our kids,” Tanya agreed, wiping her eyes on the corner of her shirt. She didn't care how she looked. It didn't matter anymore. “And apparently you love her, and she loves you. How sweet. And what about me? What am I supposed to do? What does the spurned woman do in these instances, Peter? Step aside graciously and wish you the best? Do we go on being neighbors, and share the kids like one big happy family? What do you want from me?”
“Alice is going to sell her house, and we're going to move to Mill Valley. But it may take a while. I don't think I should move in next door. It might be confusing for the kids.”
“Nice of you to figure that out, not to mention confusing for me. When were you planning to tell the kids?” She thought of something then. Her head was spinning and her mind was going in a thousand directions at once, trying to make sense of what he'd said. “I think we should wait to tell them until after graduation in June. It's less than three months away. I'll be back at the end of May, after we finish postproduction, which means we'll only have to live together for a couple of weeks.” He had already figured out the same timing as she. “I also have no idea what we're going to do for the next two weeks. You can't move in with Alice, and I don't want to share a room with you.” She was looking at him like a stranger. She had come home looking forward to two weeks with him, and he had given her this news. It was shocking beyond belief.
“I can stay in Jason's room, if you want,” he said quietly.
“How will you explain that to the girls?” She had a point. He wasn't quite sure how to do that. “Maybe we'll just have to suck it up and sleep in the same room.” She wasn't looking forward to it, knowing what she did now. He belonged to another woman. Twenty years of her life were over. She had been canceled, like a TV show with bad ratings. Off the air forever. She tried not to think about the fact that she still loved him. If she did, she might have lain on the ground at the foot of Mount Tam and started to wail. She suddenly wondered if she'd have a nervous breakdown. But it was a luxury she couldn't afford. She'd just have to be grown-up about it, even if it killed her. For a moment, she thought it might. He might as well have shot her. She played his words over in her mind again, but they sounded just as crazy in her head as they had coming out of his mouth. He was leaving her and wanted to marry Alice. Maybe they were all crazy. It made no sense to Tanya. It never had. Everything that was happening seemed insane.
“I'll sleep on the floor,” Peter said quietly, reviewing their sleeping arrangements, which were the least of their problems. She nodded. It seemed suitable punishment for him.
“And we'll tell them after graduation,” Tanya said, and he nodded in confirmation. “Well, that's simple then. Anything else we need to discuss? Do I have to sell the house?” There was an edge of despair in her voice, and a load of bricks on her heart.
“Not if you don't want to,” he said grimly. She looked normal but was sounding crazy, or maybe the reverse. She was trying to mentally walk through all the details so she knew what she was facing. It was a way of staying busy so she didn't fall apart.
“I don't need alimony. I think you should pay for college. I guess that sums it up then. When's the wedding?”
“Tan, don't be like this. I know it's a shock. I don't want to drag this out. We could have waited to be sure it's the right thing, but I didn't want to mislead you. Alice and I need time to figure this out and make sure it works. But I'd rather do that living with her than living with you and pretending, or lying to you any more than we already have.”
“Of course. No, lying isn't a good thing,” she said, as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I definitely think you should move in with Alice. But actually, I don't want to go to the wedding.” In spite of herself, she was sobbing. He tried to put an arm around her to comfort her, but she pulled away from him and stood up. She wanted to preserve what dignity she had left. It was horrifying to realize they'd have to pretend to be married for the next two weeks during the girls' spring vacation. They were no longer married, as far as Tanya was concerned. He now belonged to Alice, and had for several months.
They drove back to the house in silence, with Tanya wiping the tears off her cheeks, and staring out the window. She kept saying the words in her head again and again. Peter was leaving her. He was going to live with Alice … with Alice … not with her anymore. She was going to live alone now with her children, except that they would be gone, too. She was going to be totally alone in September. No Peter, no children. All she had wanted all winter was to come home, and now there was no one to come home to. In this case, the story had a very bad ending. She would never have written it this way, but Peter and Alice had. In essence Peter had fired her. And all Tanya could think of as they drove back to the house and she got out of the car was that she wanted to die.
Chapter 14
T
he two weeks Tanya spent in Marin were agony from start to finish. She tried to put up a good front for the girls, and Peter was extremely civilized and humiliatingly sympathetic. In the five weeks she hadn't seen him, his entire life had turned around, and he now belonged to Alice. Tanya felt as though she was dazed all the time. She kept trying to figure it out, and how it had happened. She blamed herself for going to L.A. and working on the movie. And when she didn't blame herself, she blamed Peter. And of course Alice. She was relieved when she finally left for L.A., to start postproduction. She had lost more weight and had a hard look to her, which was really fear. She was hanging on by a thread by the time she got to the office to work with Max and Douglas. It was a relief to have something to do other than try to guess what her life would be like after Peter left her. For the two weeks in Marin, she kept asking him painful questions, like how much of their furniture he was taking. With the girls turning eighteen in June, the custody issues would be simple. They didn't even need visitation schedules. The kids could visit whomever they wanted. It was all so agonizingly simple. She still looked shell-shocked as she worked with Douglas and Max the next day. Max had noticed immediately that she looked terrible, and asked her about it at the end of the day, as she stuffed papers back into her briefcase. She had been distracted all day.
“Do I want to know how your break went?” he asked gently. He had already guessed. She looked about the same as she had after Christmas, only slightly worse. He could guess the outcome.
“No, you don't.” And then she decided to tell him. “He's moving in with the other woman, after the girls graduate in June. He thinks they're getting married. Apparently, it was ‑meant to be.’; My very own real-life soap. How cheesy does it get? You have to ask yourself that question.”
“Life is cheesy,” Max said sympathetically. He noticed that she seemed angrier than she had in December. And underneath the anger, heartbroken. He could see it. “It's amazing how tacky life is sometimes, even among allegedly civilized people. I guess we all behave like shows about people in trailer parks sometimes, whether we want to or not. It's why those agony shows work so well on TV.”
“I guess so,” she said, smiling wistfully at him. “I'll be okay. It just takes some adjustment.” He knew her kids were going to college at the end of the summer. She would be alone, which he suspected wouldn't be easy for her. Her family had been all she talked about all year. And now her husband was leaving. She was about to lose everyone she loved, in one way or another. And the husband, fool that he was, in Max's opinion, was going off with her best friend. Max couldn't help agreeing with her. It was tacky. And sad for her. He felt genuinely sorry for her.
“Sometimes the worst shit that happens to us turns out to be a blessing. We just don't see it at the time. One day you may look back and feel that way. On the other hand, one day you may look back and decide that this time in your life was truly fucked.” She smiled in spite of herself at what he said.
“I think that might be the case. I'm not enjoying this much.”
“At least we know you're sane. I think the only decent advice I have for you is that your salvation will be work. Mine has always been. When the love of my life died of breast cancer, the only thing that saved my ass and kept me sane was work. It's the only way to go.” Tanya nodded. She hadn't thought of that. She'd been thinking about their summer plans and what it would be like to go to Tahoe without Peter, after they told the girls the news, of course. And she had thought about taking them to college. They had gotten their college acceptances while she was home on vacation. The excitement of it had been totally obscured for her by her broken heart. At least the girls had been thrilled. Both girls had gotten into their first-choice schools. Megan was going to UCSB with her brother, and Molly was going to film school at USC. But Tanya had absolutely no idea what she would do after they left. She had thought she would finally have the chance to spend more time with Peter, but he would be doing that with Alice now. Tanya felt like a marble in a shoebox, rolling around aimlessly, with no anchor to keep her in place. All her anchors were about to leave. It was a terrifying thought. Max was right. The only thing she had left was work, and holidays with her kids.
She went home every weekend during postproduction. Their schedule was far more civilized now. She did her best to avoid Peter, who was spending a lot of time next door with Alice. And the girls asked her no questions. It was as though there were a minefield all around them and they knew it, and were being careful not to set anything off. She wondered what they thought. They would all know soon enough. She was dreading telling them and Jason in June. In the meantime she kept to herself, spent time with the girls on the weekends, and started writing extremely depressing short stories at night, an unusual number of them about death. In a sense, their marriage had died, and the only way she knew to mourn it was to write about it. Peter saw one of them on her computer one afternoon, read it, and cringed. She was in a very bleak state of mind.
Douglas met with her in the last week of postproduction in May and made an interesting suggestion. They had had easy dinners several times, to discuss work. He had invited her to his pool again, but she was gone every weekend save one, and that weekend she didn't accept either. She was too depressed. He was planning to produce another movie, with a different director this time, a well-known woman, who had also won many Oscars. It was an extremely depressing story about a woman who committed suicide, and he wanted Tanya to do the script. It suited her mood at the moment, but she had no desire to come back to L.A. In her heart of hearts, she thought her marriage had ended as a result of her working there on the film. It had left a bad taste in her mouth. All she wanted now was to go back to Marin. She told Douglas that over dinner, and he laughed.