“I’m with you, girl. Jonathan’s a great guy but all that seersucker? It doesn’t scream fashionista, does it? I think it’s time to resurrect the martini dress and the Barbara Bush pearls. What do you think?”
Soon, I was pulling into the Charleston Airport with a coiffed Miss Jo. Now, I’m not saying she knew exactly what was going on, but she recognized the airport as a place where people came and went. We parked, went inside, checked the arrivals board, and waited in the baggage claim. His plane had just touched down.
Minutes later, here he came. Miss Jo was so excited she wiggled her way out of my arms, jumped to the floor, and strained against her leash until he reached her.
“Yes, yes! My sweet! Daddy’s home! Hey, Les!”
“Hey, Harlan.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. It was the sweetest thing I ever saw. Miss Jo was wild with enthusiasm. Wild! She sat, she held out her paw, she walked on her hind legs, she rolled over, and she sat up to beg. She performed all her tricks to show Harlan how happy she was that he was back. Finally, he picked her up and cuddled her, and only then did she begin to calm down.
“Thank the Lord I only have one dog!” he said, and we laughed.
“Let’s get your bags,” I said. “Are you exhausted?”
“Beyond! All the trustees came home yesterday with our travel person, but I stayed an extra day. At least I didn’t have to be the tour guide and lead all our folks through customs and all of that.”
I nodded my head. “So it was great, huh?”
“What can I say? Italy? It’s incredible. Just boggles the mind. Even the dirt is more beautiful than ours. Plus, it’s porcini mushroom season. Grilled, with a little olive oil and coarse salt? I ate them for lunch and dinner every day until my tongue turned black. Then I gave them a rest.”
“That was probably for the best. Are those your bags?”
“Yep. Adesso! Andiamo! Let’s blow this pizza parlor.”
“Am I going to be subjected to Italian metaphors for the foreseeable future?”
“Sì, signora.”
“Good! I’m so happy you’re home. I really am, Harlan. I missed you like mad.”
We threw his bags in the trunk of my Audi and slammed the lid closed.
“There’s nothing in the world like a great sister!” he said.
“I’m assuming that means me,” I said and gave him another sisterly hug.
Over dinner, I told Harlan the whole Atlanta story about Wes, his surgery, the kids, and the proposed therapy, and he was as attentive as he could be given how tired he was.
“Sounds like insanity. So, by the way, how are things with Jonathan?”
“Comfortable. Wonderful. But you know, I’m not divorced, and I haven’t even decided if I’m going to go through with a divorce. And he’s talking about moving to California to be near his kids.”
“Plans change.” Harlan paused and then said, “Well, sugar, if you don’t know what you want to do, therapy is an excellent idea.”
“You don’t think it’s a waste of time?”
“Maybe, but look. Thirty years is a long time, and I wouldn’t throw that away until I’d satisfied myself that it was truly over.”
“I think this is about the money. He knows I know.”
“How did he handle that revelation?”
“Ballistic on the level of a Chinese New Year’s firework display? In Beijing? At the Olympics?”
“I bet. Well, look, I think you have to go back. Then you can tell yourself you gave your marriage every chance you could.”
“Harlan? Do you think it’s possible to sell my Audi and lease a new little red Benz before I go to Atlanta? I brought some checks with me.”
Harlan nearly spit his mashed potatoes across the table, and then he began to laugh this uproariously crazy laugh. I hadn’t heard him thunder like that in twenty years. Then I began to laugh with him. This went on for what seemed to be a very long time. We got up from the table, and Harlan hugged me with all his might.
“She’s saved!” he cried. “Oh, Leslie Greene Carter! You’re alive! It would be my greatest pleasure to handle that for you myself!”
“Can we get one that comes with diamond stud earrings?”
“I’m certain that we can.”
PART THREE
THERAPY CONTINUES
CHAPTER 20
Wes—The Joint Session
“So the way this is going to work,” said my leggy therapist, Dr. Jane Saunders, “is that I’m going to lead this two-hour session with Wes for almost half the time, and then we’ll have a break for ten minutes. After the break, Dr. Katz is going to take over and we’ll hear from Les. If at any time the other party wants to make a comment, please feel free to do so. I know that the two of you are not terribly hostile toward each other, but I want to remind you that the more civil you are with each other, the more success will be had. All right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“So, Wes?” Dr. Saunders said. “I believe you’ve had some news from your company, is that right?”
“I’ve been offered an early retirement package, and I think I should take it.”
Les said, “Really? Are you ready to retire, Wes?”
“Well, it came as kind of a surprise, but it made me think. I have to retire eventually, and I don’t want to wait until I’m too old to enjoy it.”
“I know how you feel,” Les said.
Both doctors made a note of Les’s remark. Did Les mean that she wanted out of our marriage as though she was retiring from a corporate job and with that she could take her retirement package and just go do what she wanted?
“What’s that supposed to mean, Leslie?” I said it nicely, but her remark certainly did sound insulting.
“Look, Wes, what have your retirement plans always been?” she asked.
“To play the top one hundred golf courses in the United States. I’ve said it a million times. They’re located in some very lovely places that even you might enjoy.”
“Such as?”
“Well, all up and down the California coast, but there’s also a great one in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, and there’s another one in Frankfort, Michigan, and one in Roland, Arkansas. Don’t forget Ooltewah, Tennessee.”
“Wesley? Do you really think I have any interest whatsoever in seeing those golf courses? I mean, I’m sure those are perfectly nice places populated with lovely people, but I wouldn’t get excited to have dinner with even the likes of Tiger Woods unless he came to my house. Even then I’m not so sure. I don’t care about golf. You care about golf.”
“So what does that mean, Leslie? That if I want to hold my family together I have to give up golf in my golden years and sit home with you on the sofa watching you knit?”
“First of all,” Leslie said, “I don’t want you to give up golf. You love it! You live for it! And I don’t knit. This is not about holding our family together, Wes. The kids are adults and ought to be living on their own. But Charlotte and Bertie will always be my children and yours. This is about us. We just want different things.”
“Do you want to tell these nice relationship counselors what you did when you left Atlanta the last time? What you took? And what you bought?”
“I took ten checks from an account in my name that Wes has hidden from me for the entire span of our marriage. That account is in my name as well. It has twenty-two million dollars in it, and I never knew it was there.”
“Because you would’ve gone crazy and spent it,” I said. “Look at how much you blew in the last month!”
Dr. Katz interrupted. “Leslie? Have you ever been fiscally irresponsible in the past?”
“Never in my life,” she said.
I wasn’t letting them get away with this. “And what did you buy yourself with those checks, Leslie?”
“I leased a little Mercedes-Benz and I bought a pair of diamond stud earrings for three thousand dollars,” she said, without one single solitary trace of remorse.
“Se
e?” I said triumphantly. “That’s why I never gave her access to that account! The first thing she does . . .”
Then Saunders piped up. “What kind of car do you drive, Wes?”
“Well, it’s a Benz, the big one, but in my line of business, it’s important for a man in my position to have the right car. It says something about my position in life. Leslie doesn’t need a Mercedes to go to the grocery store, does she?”
“Wes?” Leslie said. “I wanted one. That simple. I wanted one, we have the money, you have one, now I have one.”
“So you think you’re getting even with me or something? For what? What did I do?”
“Nothing, Wes, and that’s part of our problem,” Les said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I was getting plenty pissed now.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Wes. We’ve been through all this, how many times?”
“Well, tell me this. What in the hell are you doing going around buying yourself diamond earrings? Who are you trying to impress?”
“Wes, almost every woman I know has at least one piece of good jewelry. It’s my sixtieth birthday soon, and I’ve always wanted a pair of diamond studs. We have the money. It’s not like I called up Cartier and told them to send over the biggest diamonds they have.”
“Your sixtieth birthday isn’t for two years.” What? Now she’s going to let the world know I forgot her big birthday was coming?
“Actually, it’s next week. Would you like me to show you my driver’s license to prove it?”
“It is?”
“Yes, it is.”
Shit! She had me! I must look like a pathetic idiot. Can’t even remember my wife’s birthday? No. That looks very bad.
“But you look so young? How can this be? Is it true? You’re sixty?”
“Yep, next week.”
“I’m so sorry, Les. I guess I’ve been so worried about my cancer and all and now they want me to retire. Can you imagine how I feel?” Everyone in the room was quiet. “Well, wear them in good health, Leslie. You deserve them if that’s what you want. I just wish I’d given them to you, that’s all. A woman shouldn’t have to buy her own diamonds.”
Dr. Saunders spoke up. “All right, let’s take a break now and meet back here in ten minutes?”
Leslie stood up and said, “Great! Then perhaps we can talk about Wes and his hookers?”
This was not going well.
CHAPTER 21
Les in Therapy
Now it was Dr. Jonathan Katz’s turn to lead the discussion.
“So, Leslie, you’ve taken up residence with your brother in Charleston, South Carolina. Is that right?”
“With her brother, Harlan. Who is a cream puff,” Wes said, for no good reason at all except that Wes’s homophobia was a disgrace to the twenty-first century and all humanity.
I thought Katz and Saunders were going to collapse. Katz turned red, and Saunders turned white.
“It’s precisely this kind of cruel prejudice and Wes’s lack of respect for my family that led me to take up residence with my brother. And, for the last time, Wesley, if you insult my brother once more? You’ll regret it,” I said.
“Oh, please,” Wes said and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
“Look, Wes, I’m not the same girl you married.”
“Boy, I’ll say,” he said and sort of coughed.
I wanted to grab him by his shoulders and shake him to make him stop.
“There’s no reason to be insulting, Wes,” I said. “Listen to me. The purpose of this therapy was for you to satisfy yourself that leading separate lives is the best thing for us to do. I think it is, and with every day that passes, I believe this more and more. I’m not angry with you, Wes. And it’s not that I don’t care about you, because you know I do. We just want different things in our lives at this point, and I think we ought to be able to pursue those interests. Look, maybe we have twenty years left before we’re dead. Shouldn’t we do the things we want to do?”
“Well, I intend to,” he said. “And what do you want, Leslie? Some stud like Danette’s got herself?”
“Actually, no. I want to travel all over Europe, Wes. I want to hear an opera at the Vienna opera house and La Scala too. I want to learn about wine and cheese in France and Italy, and I want to go to all the great museums. And I want to listen to chamber music in my house, morning, noon, and night, until I have memorized every single quartet, sextet, and octet ever written, and I want to recognize who’s playing them. And I want to laugh, Wes. I want to laugh and have fun. I have earned it.”
“This is about that man I saw you with, isn’t it?” Wes turned to Katz and Saunders and said, “I saw a picture of my wife with a man in the background of a photograph in the AJC. Nice, huh?”
“The man was Jonathan Ray, an old high school friend, and he has absolutely nothing to do with this entire ordeal.”
It was true.
“You view this as an ordeal, do you?” Wes said.
“Because it is. What about your hookers, Wes?”
“Hookers don’t mean anything. It’s just sex. It’s not like Harold and Danette.”
I turned to Saunders and Katz and said, “The idea of my husband picking up hookers is completely revolting to me. It’s still infidelity. And, Wes, you cannot possibly compare their marriage to ours.”
“Maybe, but you’re right; we’re not like them. And right again, I hate chamber music. It’s like funeral music! And I’d rather take a bullet than sit through an opera—cats screeching! Apparently, we don’t want or like the same things anymore.”
“I’m not sure we ever did.”
“So this is it? You want a divorce?”
“No, I don’t. Not today or in the foreseeable future either. I just want to do what I want to do in the same way you want to do what you want to do.”
“Oh, I see, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander?”
“If it helps you to understand my feelings, then yes. Look, I have a proposal for you that won’t make the lawyers rich.”
“Well,” Wes said, “I’m all ears for that.”
“I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking, Wes. A lot of time. And I want whatever happens between us to be fair. Maybe this is too modern for your blood, but how’s this? You keep the house and everything in it except for my mother’s silver and my personal belongings like my clothes and so forth. I’ll find a house of similar value in Charleston, and you’ll buy it and pay the cost to furnish it. Not with period antiques and all that, but with reasonable furnishings.”
“Wait a minute. Since when did I say it was okay for you to go buy another house? Did you earn the money?”
“Wes. Wake up. Thirty years of marriage. I don’t need your permission to do anything.”
“Fine.” Wes exhaled deeply enough to muss our hair. “Continue.”
“Half the bank account is mine, except for the Coke stock you inherited. So you keep that and put half of the rest of the assets in my name. Then we rewrite our wills to say that whoever dies first will inherit the other’s estate. I remain your executor, you remain mine, and you’ll keep me covered with medical insurance. Then we go our own ways. Should the time come that we want a divorce, we’ll get together and discuss it. Meanwhile, we will let our respect for each other be obvious to our children and friends and continue to watch our family grow. If you need me for anything, just call me.”
“But, Leslie, if I deduct the furnishings of this new house of yours from my share, then you wind up getting more.”
“Then get a lawyer, Wes.”
He was quiet for a few minutes.
“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have.”
Saunders and Katz were completely silent. I knew that they thought Wes was a horse’s ass. The bigger question was, would Wes ever realize it? And given his Ebenezer streak that was as wide as I-95, Wes had to realize this arrangement would save him a fortune in legal bills.
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“Let me sleep on it,” Wes said.
“You do that,” I said. “You have one week to decide.”
“You’re threatening me now? What if I don’t?”
“This is not a threat, Wes. If you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it.”
“No, I don’t. And yours is pretty fair. I just don’t like you telling me I only have one week. You’re not in charge.”
“And neither are you, Wes. Those days are over.”
He looked at me with the strangest expression, like he was seeing me for the first time.
“And what if I don’t get back to you in a week?”
“I’ll hire a divorce lawyer that will find the five dollars your aunt Teresa gave you for your fifth birthday and anything else you have stashed away someplace. And I’ll take much more than I’m asking for now, Wes. So you sleep on it. Okay? How’s that?”
For the first time since Charlotte announced her unplanned pregnancy, I saw that little vein next to Wes’s left eyebrow begin to pulsate.
“Since when did you get so ballsy?”
“I finally learned to love myself, Wes, and I just want what’s mine.”
“What about the wedding, Les? If we don’t go together, everyone will talk.”
“Wesley, for God’s sake, people are always going to talk. Who cares?”
I looked at my watch and realized our time was up, so I stood and gathered up my purse and scarf.
“Well,” said Jane Saunders, “I think we’re all done here for now. You two don’t really need us at this point.”
“I think that’s right. Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” Saunders said.
“Yes,” Dr. Katz said, smiling. “You call us if you need us. You have my card, don’t you?”