The Wife of Reilly (26 page)

“You’re not okay to drive,” I said, noticing his difficulty getting out of the chair. Can I make you a cup of coffee?” I offered.

“Oh, I’m fine, but I will take you up on the coffee,” he said.

Pouring his coffee, I told him I was sorry that we never got out of the house to do anything that day.

“I wouldn’t put it that way. I haven’t had an entire afternoon with my little girl in twenty-five years. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty good day for me.”

“How do you take your coffee, Father?”

“With cream and sugar,” he answered.

“Low-fat milk and Equal?” I offered.

“That’s fine.”

Chapter 23

As soon as I sat down at my desk the next morning, Lara announced that Father was on the phone for me. Perhaps he forgot his scarf, I thought, but knew deep down I was kidding myself. Father did not do moderation. It was either abandonment or suffocation with him.

“Father,” I said with a cool friendliness.

“Prudence,” he said like a man who’d just watched the Lou Gehrig story on ESPN. “I had to call and tell you how much yesterday meant to me.”

“This isn’t necessary,” I said.

“Being with you yesterday made me realize exactly what I was missing without you in my life, and I’m so happy we’re turning things around between us,” he said. “What do you say we get together again next weekend?”

Father reminded me of the federal agents who kick down doors and raid the homes of suspected drug dealers. I opened the door just a crack, and now this psycho was kicking it in, storming around, rampaging through my closets, clinging his back to my walls warning imaginary accomplices that he’s armed. “Father’s Bureau of Interrogation,” I imaged him shouting as he turned my sock drawer upside down. “I want to know everything about your life, Prudence. Forgive me now or I’ll shoot.”

“Thank you for the offer,” I said, trying to find a comfortable place between cold and conciliatory. “I’m heading out of town Thursday and won’t be back until next Monday night, so I won’t be able to see you.”

“Oh, okay. Where are you going?”

“Los Angeles,” I said.

“To see Mike?”

“Matt. Listen, I have to get a week’s worth of work done by Wednesday, so I’ve really got to run. Thanks for the call.”

“Call me when you get back?” Father asked. “Maybe we can catch a movie or something together, okay?”

“Okay,” I promised with a non-committal note.

On Wednesday evening Jennifer, Chad and Sophie invited me to what they called a send-off dinner. It was more like a meeting of the New York Boosters’ spirit committee. I knew they were desperate when they suggested eating at the Apple Core, the city’s newest tourist hot spot. Like the Hard Rock Café was for music, the Core was a museum of Manhattan memorabilia. The walls were plastered with subway maps, Broadway show posters and framed remnants from Ground Zero. Waitresses dressed like Lady Liberty, Rockettes and meter maids. In the center of the room we sat in was a Checker Cab with the top cut off and life-size wax figures of Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. He drove; she held the map and pointed in the opposite direction Rudy was heading. On the menu were cheesily named items like Empire Steak Salad, Oysters Rockefeller Center, Yankee Doodle Strudel and Big Apple Pie. It was so overdone Manhattan, it just screamed Ohio.

Chad started by casually tossing out that he’d recently read that Manhattan had more art per square mile than any other city in the world. Subtle.

“Is that so?” said Sophie. “I heard that the San Andreas Fault — which runs right through downtown L.A., by the way — is due for a major, and I mean major, earthquake within the next five years. The whole city is going to snap right off and fall into the sea, you know.”

“D’you know
Fortune
just ranked L.A. the worst city for accountants?” Jennifer added.

“You guys, I am not moving,” I assured them. “You saw how much Matt liked New York. I’m just going for a visit, and when we discuss where to live, I’ll be able to honestly say that I gave Los Angeles a fair chance, but that New York is the only place for me.”

“To New York.” Jennifer raised her wine glass for a toast. “Best goddamn city on the planet.”

“The only goddamn city on the planet,” said Chad as we clinked our glasses.

“Seriously, Prudence, we’re not losing you, are we?” Jennifer asked.

“Never,” I assured them. “But we’re so losing this place. Can we get out of here immediately?” Frank Sinatra blasted in the background as a table of plump people who arrived on a chartered bus wrapped their arms around each other and swayed one beat ahead of the music. “It’s up to you, New York…” — why everyone insists on outdoing each other for the final “New York” is beyond me — “Neeew Yaaaaaaawk,” a man with a
Phantom of the Opera
t-shirt bellowed for the crescendo. The crowd laughed hysterically at his manufactured accent.

“Let’s stay,” urged Sophie. “This is just too adorable to pass up.” I heard the familiar piano keys of Billy Joel and knew what song was coming next.

Chad asked what Matt and I planned to do in Los Angeles during my visit. “I just need to spend some time with him and the rest will take care of itself,” I said. “I want to play house.”

“Didn’t he say something about skiing?” Jen asked.

“
Prudence
skiing?” laughed Chad.

I smiled. “I’m trying new things. Who knows, it could be fun. Like this.”

* * *

I didn’t sleep for more than an hour that night. Anxious to see Matt, I was afraid I wouldn’t hear the alarm clock in the morning and would miss my flight. Never mind the fact that my plane didn’t take off until one in the afternoon. I still didn’t want to take the chance. Instead I unpacked and repacked my suitcase three times after three false alarms. First I thought I forgot my black suede square-toe pumps, but they were snuggled beside my sneakers. Then I thought I forgot my yin-and-yang half t-shirt. It was rolled up peacefully next to my burgundy raw silk sweater. And at about five in the morning, I sat up in bed in a panic thinking that I forgot to pack the jeans that the nice folks at Levi and Strauss made just for me. I have never had a pair of pants look as perfect on me as these did. But why shouldn’t they? After a half-hour of measuring every curve of my ass and legs, a tongue-pierced clerk punched some numbers into a computer and, two weeks later, mailed me a pair of Prudence Malone Edition 501s.

Finally I gave up on trying to go to sleep and turned on the television midway through an episode of
The Jeffersons.
Then I watched
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
then
Rhoda,
then
Phyllis
. I fell asleep on the couch just a few minutes before the alarm went off.

“Okay, it’s okay, I’m awake,” I said to no one. I brought my suitcase downstairs and left it in the entryway to the building while I grabbed a cup of coffee across the street, then stood at the curb to hail a cab. My senses were so heightened that the feeling of the banister gliding against my palm as I descended the stairs was almost arousing. The thought that every step I took brought me closer to Matt was nothing short of pure and undiluted exhilaration.

Adrenaline was winning the battle over fatigue. The crisp morning air made me feel like one of those women in the old Jean Naté ads who tossed lavish amounts of the after-bath splash all over herself. I looked at other people on the street heading toward the subway station or buying their newspapers, and saw the stark contrast in how we were greeting the new day. It was just another day for them. I was like one of those goofy coma patients who wakes up after fifteen years and runs wild through the streets shouting at the sky, “A cloud, a cloud! God bless the world, there’s a beautiful puffy cloud in the bright blue sky!”

Other people were sipping coffee. I was having a spiritual experience with the wondrous ground beans of Columbia. If I had seen Juan Valdez and his donkey, I would have grabbed his face and kissed him with such passion I might have accidentally bit his lips.

“Where to?” asked a friendly cab driver with a Jamaican accent and a gap between his front teeth.

“Kennedy,” I said.

“Oh, taking a trip now?” he asked.

“Yes,” I beamed.

“Where to?”

My future.

“Los Angeles to visit my fiancé,” I said.

“Ah, young love,” he said, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror.

I couldn’t tell if he was being facetious and could not have cared less. I was going to take it as a compliment. A testament to clean living, exercise and cosmetic surgery.

We arrived at the airport, where a baggage check-in guy quickly approached the taxi trunk and tossed an LAX tag on my suitcase. He sent it on a conveyor belt with a group of other bags that were attending a party on the lower deck.

On the plane, I noticed one of Reilly’s business partners in the row of seats across from mine. We conspicuously attempted avoiding eye contact as we tried to figure out who each other was. When we finally placed the name with the face, I kept my head buried in the airline magazine, and he began working on his laptop computer. I was staring at a map of the United States with red lines tracing all of the routes that American Airlines flies. I’m sure he was playing solitaire or searching the DVD selection on Amazon.com. Somewhere over the Rocky Mountains, we both got up to use the restroom at the same time. Jim shuffled his weight uncomfortably as we stood in line together.

“Prudence. How are you?” Jim said, making it obvious that his smile was forced.

“I’m well, Jim. Yourself?” I said in an equally measured tone. I don’t know exactly what I was supposed to be upset with him about, but I wasn’t going to grovel for forgiveness either.

“Dandy,” he said. “So what brings you to Los Angeles?” he asked.

Los Angeles nothing, Jim. This was all a big ploy to get you alone in the airplane lavatory and screw your brains out, whore that I am.

“I’m visiting a friend,” I told him.

“Oh,” Jim returned. “I hope you and he have good weather.” The entire purpose of that sentence was to let me know that he knew I was visiting a “he.”

Well, what do you expect?
Guilt asked.
Reilly is probably moping around the office and crying on this guy’s shoulder after work. Of course he hates you.

“Thanks,” I said before shutting the door and sliding the lock to read “Occupied.”

Before returning to my seat, I asked the airline attendant for several new magazines to read. There was no point in trying to sleep. I was afraid Jim might try to put a pillow over my face and avenge my sins against Reilly.

Chapter 24

Flying into Los Angeles was like landing in a vacuum cleaner bag.

I remembered my last airplane flight four months ago when I was returning to Reilly after my weekend in Ann Arbor. Instead of Guilt sitting next to me yammering away through the entire flight, this time I had Jim in the next row as a constant reminder of the husband I just discarded. I reminded myself that, although I should have been honest with Reilly, I didn’t just toss him by the wayside either. I tried to recycle.

I wanted to shuffle past Jim as he was getting his bags from the overhead compartment, but he wouldn’t let me slip by without one last dig.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for here, Prudence,” he said without a trace of sincerity.

“And I hope you learn to drop your self-righteousness someday, Jim,” I said. “I know some things about you, and you’re hardly qualified to sit in judgment of me.” I snapped my head around like a model on the catwalk and strutted away, just like Vilma taught us in bitch class. I had no evidence of any skeletons in Jim’s closet, but figured it was a safe bet to assume everyone’s got some, so I bluffed. The expression on his face let me know that my guess was right. I could see him wondering how I knew. How Reilly even knew.

The last I saw of Jim was when he scurried past Matt, who was holding a sign that read, “Paradise.” I ran into his arms and he twirled me around like a soldier returning from the war. Perhaps it was the
Pearl Harbor
baseball cap he was wearing and the oversized khaki shirt that inspired him. Whatever the reason, being with him was my deliverance.

* * *

“You’re a welcome sight, Malone,” he said, standing back to look at me. “Let me tell you what the plan is tonight, okay?” He grabbed my hand and began walking toward the baggage claim area. “My buddy Rick is having a party before we take off for Big Bear tomorrow. I want you to meet him ’cause he’s like a brother. You’re going to love him. He’s really cool.”

I wondered how Matt described me to his friends when he told them he was bringing me to Rick’s party that night. Was I “really cool,” a “hot babe,” a “sharp cookie” or something else?

I told him I’d love to meet his friends but needed a short nap before the party. “I absolutely have to take a cold shower before we go, too. I got practically no sleep last night.”

“Why didn’t you sleep on the plane, Malone?”

“Um, bumpy ride.”

* * *

I struggled with my seat belt as Matt paid the parking lot attendant and hit the freeway. Matt driving in the bumper-to-bumper traffic was like a gazelle on a leash. He kept revving his engine, bolting forward a few inches before we came to a jerking stop.

“I’ve never seen a car like this, Matt,” I said of his fire-engine-red convertible.

He petted the dashboard then gave it a pat. “This is Tabitha. My baby.”

Not thrilled with the car-naming thing, but I can live with it. At least that’s the only thing he’s named.

“I got her at an auction last year. Not many of these babies around anymore,” Matt said proudly. “You know what kind of car this is, Malone?”

I shook my head. “Last time I was even in a car without a meter running was in Ann Arbor.”

“A 1968 Pontiac GTO,” he said as if this might mean something to me.

“Oh,” I extended as if perhaps I’d heard of this model before. “Does it get good mileage?”

Matt laughed. “You’re not into cars, are you?”