Just Like Me, Only Better (30 page)

When he came in through the garage door at three o’clock, I was mixing batter for Morning Glory muffins. The muffins had carrot, pineapple, oatmeal, cinnamon, walnuts, and raisins. Ben loved them.

Hank stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking slightly ill and clutching his keys, which he normally tossed on the counter as soon as he walked in the house.

“I’ve fallen in love.” His voice was husky.

Call it denial, call it delusion: I thought he meant with me. “That’s sweet. I love you, too.” I smiled and wiped my hands on a kitchen towel so that when I hugged him, I wouldn’t get flour on his royal blue Discount Blinds polo shirt.

“I mean, with someone else.” His face twisted, and tears slid down his cheeks.

I clutched the kitchen towel. Surely he didn’t just say . . .

“I’m so sorry,” he croaked. “I didn’t mean, I didn’t mean . . .”

Ben was in the next room. Ben couldn’t hear this.

“Not now,” I said, with more than a little desperation. Nausea washed over me, as if I’d been attacked by a quick and terrible flu. This couldn’t be happening.

“Yes, now. I’ve waited too long already. Oh, Roni, I’ve tried. All these years. When you—When Ben happened, I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought everything would work out okay. But I can’t go on living like this.”

A ray of sun streamed through the window; the rain had cleared, leaving the sky an uncommonly crisp blue. In the kitchen, the muffin batter waited in a glass bowl on the counter. Ben’s painting of “my famlee” drooped from two refrigerator magnets.

“Living like . . . what?”
Who is she?

“Like I’m dead. Every day, it’s the same thing. I get up, go hang blinds, come home, eat dinner, ask you and Ben about your day. I watch television and then go to sleep. Every. Single. God-damn. Day.”

“You don’t like your job, so you go out and have an affair?” Wasn’t that what he’d said? Or did he say that being married to me was like being dead? The queasiness increased. I leaned against the counter.

“Roni.” He wiped his red face with his large, callused hands. “I didn’t wait so long to have a family because I hadn’t found the right person. I waited because I wasn’t sure I wanted a family. The responsibility. The routine. It’s like I’m drowning. You’re so young. It’s not your fault . . .”

“Who is she?”
Not my fault?

“Darcy.”

That threw me. “Who?”

“Darcy DeCosta. The Realtor. You know, the one who’s been giving me all the referrals.”

I had Darcy DeCosta scratch pads all over my house. A Darcy DeCosta magnet was one of the two holding up Ben’s family picture.

Darcy DeCosta was hard. She was old. She didn’t stand a chance. I wasn’t sure if I could ever forgive Hank, but we could get through this. We had to. We had Ben.

“We’ll work things out,” I said.

He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to work things out.”

While I finished the muffins and started dinner, he went into the bedroom to pack. He stayed for my cornflake-crusted chicken with green beans and apple sauce. I was on autopilot, reminding Ben to put his napkin on his lap, cutting his chicken, answering Hank’s awkward questions about the dinosaur diorama. It was so strange and unreal. It hadn’t even occurred to me to cry yet: that would come later.

After dinner, still dazed, I did the dishes while he read a story to Ben. That gave me hope. He’d never read much to Ben; that had always been my job. Hank’s job was to watch television with Ben. Maybe this meant that Hank was rethinking his plan.

I heard the suitcase wheels before I saw him. I stayed over the sink, water running, scrubbing brush in my hand.

He put a hand on my shoulder. Finally, the tears came.

“I told Ben I’d be back tomorrow night. To read to him.”

I nodded, salt water cascading down my cheeks and into the sink.

“I want you to be happy,” he said.

I was too crushed to get angry, to tell him that was the stupidest thing anyone had ever said. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, he was gone.

 

 

 

S
o I can’t say that Brady’s betrayal was the worst I’d ever experienced: not even close. But the familiar dizziness and nausea drenched me. When anger bubbled up, it was directed at myself. After all I’d been through, how could I be so stupid?

Jay shook his head in disgust. “Such an asshole.”

“But why me?” I said. “If he and Haley were never even a couple—I mean, he could have anyone.”

“And he does,” Jay said. “Makeup girls, caterers, personal assistants . . .”

“But I’ve looked him up on the Internet.” Repeatedly. Obsessively. “Aside from Haley and one other girl, there was nothing.”

“Brady’s not famous enough for anyone to care who he—” Just in time, he remembered Ben, who was studying a horse painting nearby. “Dates. Besides, he’s buddy-buddy with the paps. He doesn’t want his picture taken, they don’t take it. In return, he tells them where to find him and Haley.”

“Like the Bar DeLux.” The night I’d gone out with Brady, he’d texted someone: a friend, he’d said. He’d told them where we’d be.

“Yeah,” Jay said. “Or a parking lot.”

Of course. Brady could have seduced me anywhere: a hotel, his apartment. Why would he choose a parking lot unless he wanted to be caught?

The intercom buzzed; the closed circuit TV showed a black Escalade at the gate.

“Elliott’s here,” Jay said.

“What?” I blinked at him, my concentration shot.

He saw my expression. “Oh, God. I never should have told you. Shit.” His eyes shot to Ben. “Sorry. Language. And sorry—about Brady. I should have warned you, I just thought . . .”

“That I was smarter than that.” Oh, crap. I was going to cry. Was this mascara waterproof?

“I just hoped you’d have better taste.” He retrieved a tissue box from a side table and held it out. I took one.

“Your mom’s going,” Jay told Ben.

“Huh?” Ben looked away from the horses. “Oh. Okay.”

I kissed the top of his spiky head. “Love you, Benji. Love you, love you.”

“Okay,” he said.

 

 

So maybe it wasn’t so surprising that I forgot the words to Haley’s songs. And I’m not talking a few flubs here and there. The lyrics were gone, all of them, as if I’d never even heard them before.

The party was outdoors, around an enormous rock pool with a swinging bridge and three separate waterfalls. Several kids splashed in the water, ignoring the cold gusts from a threatening storm. Adults clustered around tall propane heaters, sipping alcohol, forcing laughs, and checking their cell phones. Impossibly beautiful servers in white shirts and black pants passed trays filled with champagne, punch, and miniature kid foods: cheeseburgers, hot dogs, tacos.

The sound guy set me up on a platform—it wasn’t big enough to call a stage or lofty enough to call a pedestal—with nothing but a microphone, some lights, and two enormous speakers for company. The lights changed colors, switching my glow from pink to green to yellow.

Jay was right. The adults ignored me, at least at first. But the children—there must have been fifty of them, hair glossy, clothes trendy, expressions alternately jaded or enraptured—caught my every move and expression. They saw me freeze, panic on my face, and then try to cover it up with a laugh and a mouthed “Baby, baby” (while the background track played something else entirely). Some laughed. Others pointed. A few looked like they were going to cry.

When the first song ended, the sound guy hopped on stage and asked, “You want me to rearrange the playlist?”

There was no point: I had complete amnesia of all of Haley’s songs. I shook my head, unable to even speak.

He shrugged and turned the music back on. What did he care? He’d get paid no matter how much I bombed.

I held the microphone in front of my mouth, blocking it as much as possible. Only seven more songs and I was out of here. I swayed in time to the music and made this kind of “mah mah mah” sound. My mouth was opening and closing. Maybe that would be enough.

It wasn’t. The red-faced birthday girl, whose name was Star (of course it was), did this air-slap, foot-stamp thing before pushing her way through the child mob. By the time I began the third song (“Just Like Me, Only Better”), about half the children had drifted away, leaving a pack of horrified-looking adults in their place.

Just a child . . . chin aimed high . . . something about a mirror . . .
Damn it, I should know this one!

A silver-haired man—potbellied, squinty-eyed, big nose, silk luau shirt—held up one finger, and the sound guy cut the music. The crowd parted like the sea at the Universal Studios lot.

Phil Leventhal stood at the base of the platform. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, raspy, and filled with disgust.

“Go home.”

 

 

Jay and Ben had been playing checkers. When Jay opened the front door, Ben, kneeling on the floor, hunched over the coffee table, glanced up, mumbled, “Hi, Mom,” and went back to studying the board.

“Haley has board games?”

That was easier to say than: “Thanks to me, the head of Mercer Media thinks Haley doesn’t know the words to her own songs.”

“I brought the checkers,” Jay said, closing the door behind me.

“I’m impressed. I was sure you’d be glued to a movie.” I followed him across the room. I’d wait till they finished the game to break the news.

“Ben told me he wasn’t allowed to watch TV.” He sat back down on the soft leather couch and rested his chin on his hand.

“Oh, man! You trapped me!”

Ben beamed. Jay moved a red checker into an open spot, quite obviously setting himself up for a slaughter. Ben triple-jumped him, hopped up from the floor, and did a victory dance.

The air smelled like tomato sauce. “You ordered a pizza?”

Jay shook his head. “We used one of those Boboli things. You want a piece?”

“No, thanks. I’m not really hungry.” Failure and humiliation will do that to you.

I took a deep breath. “Things didn’t go so well tonight.”

“I know.”

For the first time, I realized that Jay hadn’t met my eyes since I’d come in the house. I waited for him to continue.

Instead, he plucked the red and black circles off the table and placed them in the cardboard box. He folded the board and put it on top of the pieces and finally closed the box.

“Good game, Ben.”

“Can we play again?”

“No can do. It’s late. You and your mom have to hit the road.”

When Jay spoke again, he kept his voice steady and his eyes on the checker box.

“Phil Leventhal called. He said that the woman I’d sent over was obviously not Haley. And that if the publicity wouldn’t be so bad, he’d sue me for everything I’m worth. So, instead, he’ll just make sure that Mercer Media never hires Haley or any of my other clients ever again.”

He looked up and finally met my eyes.

“Game over.”

 

 

 

M
y life couldn’t get any worse. Except, it did.

Sunday afternoon, Paul Mott knocked on my door. Paul was a pale, thin engineer with thin, reddish-blond hair and a general air of unease. Every time I talked to him, I had the sense he couldn’t wait to get back to his computer games.

“Good morning, Veronica.”

“Hi, Paul.”

“Though I guess it’s afternoon.” He cleared his throat.

I laughed politely. “I’ll let it slide.”

“So.” He cleared his throat again. “Deborah and I were talking.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked at his feet.

“You’ve been a great tenant and all, but the thing is, uh—” He cleared his throat yet again. I resisted the urge to suggest a sinus rinse. Finally, he said it.

“We kind of miss having a place to put out-of-town guests. We have some people—my cousins, they live in Seattle—who are thinking about coming to Disneyland this summer, and, you know, hotels are kind of expensive, and, uh . . .”

He waited for me to help him out. I didn’t. He cleared his throat again, louder and longer this time—
uh-mm-MM!
—and delivered the final blow. “Do you think you’d be able to find another place to live?”

Wimp. What would he do if I said no?

“Do I have a choice?” I asked.

“Not really.” He looked up for a brief instant before turning his attention to a tree.

 

 

Monday I stopped in the school office after dropping Ben at his classroom. I’d planned to ask—okay, beg—Dr. Fisk to consider me as a replacement for Mrs. Largent. Dr. Fisk wasn’t there.

Instead, I talked to scary Margery at the front desk. “I’m not working that L.A. job anymore. So I’m available for any subbing assignments.”

“Thanks,” she said. “But the list is pretty full.”

On the way out I saw Nina and Terri, heads close together. I hurried past them and managed to catch Mrs. Largent before she went into her classroom.

“Do you know if they’ve hired anyone to replace you?”

“Have a little sympathy, Veronica. My body’s not even cold yet.”

“You’re not dying—you’re just pregnant.”

“Easy for you to say, you skinny you-know-what. Anyway, I’m kind of out of the loop, but I heard they’re giving the job to another teacher from within district.”