“Are you kidding me?” I threw my hands up, making Mike take a step back.
“Lacey, please. She doesn’t get any of my jokes,” Mike said, his brown eyes as sad and lost as a homesick kindergartner. “She hates action movies. I can’t take her to Scrabble night over at Tina and John’s because she hates board games. Anyway, Tina and John stopped inviting me because the wives don’t like Beebee. I took her to a dinner party at the McClarens’. She went on and on about some lemon juice and cayenne pepper thing that would help Jolene McClaren ‘take all that extra weight off.”
Amos McClaren was one of Mike’s biggest corporate clients and his wife, Jolene, was very sensitive about her weight. I bit my lip to keep from laughing, because laughing would bring Mike to his senses and make the funny stories stop.
“I’m lonely,” Mike said. “I miss telling you about my day. I miss you scratching my back before I go to sleep. I miss the way you turned the toast over so the sides with the butter faced each other. I wasn’t thinking. I just - I shouldn’t have treated you like that. And I just want to go back to way things used to be, Lace. I want you to come home. I was blind, Lace. I took you for granted. And Beebee made me - I mean, the sex was -”
“I don’t want to hear about it!” I cried.
Mike threw up his hands, whether it was a conversational gesture or an effort to shield his face from oncoming blows, I had no idea. “I’m just saying, that’s all it was, sex. I can’t make a life with Beebee. Not the kind of life I had with you. If you want to come back, the door’s open.”
I just stared at him. He missed the way I buttered his toast? My purpose in his life was to laugh at his jokes, scratch his back, and butter his toast? I was vaguely sick to my stomach, but mostly, really, really sad. That was my marriage? Not once had he said he was wrong or that he was sorry. He was just telling me what he wanted. Nothing had changed.
“I just need some hope that there might still be a chance for us.”
“Mike, there is no us,” I told him firmly. My voice lowered to a less harsh whisper when I said, “There is no you and me. That’s all over now.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he insisted. “Everything can go back to where it was. We can have it all back.”
Wait a minute. This was all pretty proactive for a man who used to have me pre-peel his fruit for him. I narrowed my eyes at him. “So how did Beebee take it when you told her it was over?”
He gave me a sheepish look.
“So you’re going to do to her what you did to me?” I yelled and started toward the cabin. When I heard Mike’s footsteps behind me, I whirled around and stuck a finger in his chest. “You can’t even stay loyal to your mistress, Mike! What kind of degenerate does that make you? Why would I even consider being with someone who can’t stay faithful to the person he cheated on me with?”
The shift from kicked puppy to wounded martyr happened so quickly, it was like a ripple under the skin. Mike’s eyes narrowed, his lip curled, and he looked at me like I was something he scraped off of his shoe. “I’m trying to give you, us, another chance. You could at least give me that much credit.”
“You’re trying to get out of the mess your hormones made.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking to me like this!” he shouted, his face flushing red. “What’s wrong with you, Lacey?”
“I’m a wild woman. I skinny-dip. I have orgasms that don’t require heavy equipment.”
“I can’t believe you’re sleeping with someone else!” he cried.
“How exactly do you have the balls to get angry with me about that, Stinger?”
Mike looked like he might take a swipe at me when something he saw over my shoulder made his face melt back into a more “social” mode. I turned to see Monroe’s truck pulling into his driveway and felt both relief and annoyance. This was not an introduction I needed to make at the moment.
Monroe stepped out of his truck and looked from Mike to me and back. From the look on my face, he must have thought that Mike was a door-to-door evangelist or a census taker or something. “Everything okay, Lacey?”
“I’m fine, Monroe. This is Mike.” I huffed.
Mike’s back stiffened. He sucked in his stomach and glared at Monroe. “Who is this, Lacey?”
I sighed. “This is my neighbor, Monroe. He’s renting the McGee place.”
Monroe gave Mike an appraising once-over and offered his hand for a shake. Mike reluctantly accepted and I could see the tension in their hands as they each squeezed far harder than was socially necessary. The message could not have been clearer if there had been telegraph wires stretched between them. Monroe was letting Mike know “I’m sleeping with your woman now.” I was being marked, like territory. I was being peed on. Wonderful.
“If you don’t mind, my wife and I are having a private discussion.”
Mike’s prissy tone was enough to break the tension. I had to bite my lip again to keep from laughing. Monroe and I shared a look that made Monroe smirk. Mike saw this and scowled. “How well do you know my wife, Monroe?”
“Why the hell would you care?” I asked him.
“Oh, come on, Lacey, what’s the point of hiding it?” Monroe asked, slipping his arm around my waist. “Very well. You know, it’s not every day that a woman so spontaneous and open minded and well, flexible, moves in right next door. Am I the luckiest guy you’ve ever seen or what?”
Monroe leaned in and gave me a long, loud, smacking kiss. As Mike’s face drained to paper white, Monroe gave him a cheeky grin and slapped me on the butt before walking away. “Nice to meet you, Mark,” he called over his shoulder as he ambled to his front door and walked into his house without so much as another look.
“Right.” Mike began to roll his sleeve up, stomping toward Monroe’s door.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, what are you doing?”
“You think I’m going to just let him put his hands on my wife in front of me?” Mike demanded.
“I’m not your wife anymore.”
“So this is why you won’t come home?” Mike snarled. “We hit a rough patch and you shack up with the first ex-con you meet?”
I spluttered, “Wha - what -? Yeah, Mike, this is why I’m not coming home. My reluctance has nothing to do with the fact that your mistress is living in my house now. It would have to be because of another stud in the corral, right?”
“I told you I made a mistake! Why do you keep harping on me when I’ve said I’m sorry?”
“Actually, you haven’t said you are sorry. You said you made a mistake. It’s not the same thing,” I told him.
“I tried to give you another chance,” Mike said rather snottily. “If you’re not willing to take it -”
“Just leave, Mike.”
“You’re not going to get another chance,” he warned me.
“I don’t need one. Tell Beebee I said hello.”
Mike stormed off to his car and peeled out, flinging no small amount of gravel my way. Monroe stepped outside and waved at Mike’s departing car. He grinned at me.
“What on earth has gotten into you?” I demanded as I marched up his front steps. “I thought you had this whole ‘divorce drama’ phobia.”
“You wanted him to stay?” Monroe asked.
“No, definitely not. But I didn’t need for you to step in. And there was no reason for you to manhandle me in front of him. I did not like that.”
Monroe snorted. “Right, why make him think that you’re unavailable?”
“Don’t do that,” I ground out. “Don’t make this into a you – versus - him thing. There’s no contest. Why would I care what Mike thinks? I do not want Mike back. I am not still in love with him.”
“And you’re saying you didn’t enjoy that just a little bit, making Mike think you might spare him a lifetime of alimony?” Monroe asked.
“I’m not taking alimony from Mike. I don’t want anything from him. Hell, if Maya keeps throwing money at me, I’m not going to need it anyway.”
Oh, double
damn it. From the look on Monroe’s face, I immediately wanted to change the subject back to my ambiguous feelings toward my soon-to-be ex-husband.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “I thought we agreed you were going to drop the newsletter thing? You said you were going to rethink writing the letters.”
“Well, I did rethink it,” I said. “And I decided, for myself, that it might not be such a bad idea. I could make a lot of money writing the newsletters. And I could help people. Mostly it would be about making money, but I would have a lot of satisfaction in my job. I’ve never had that before. Even your mom said that writing that e-mail was what I needed to move on. I could do that for someone else.”
“My mom said it made sense for you to do that. She wasn’t writing a blanket prescription for everybody,” he insisted. “And you’ve been making so much progress on your book. Why stop now?”
“I don’t have the dedication that you do when it comes to writing,” I told him. “I don’t know if I’m going to finish that book. And let’s face it, even if I finish it, I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning while scratching off a million-dollar lottery ticket than getting that thing published.”
He followed me as I turned to walk away. “You want to know why your life hasn’t turned out? Why you’re not going to finish what you’ve started? Because you take the easy way out. Whenever something’s hard or doesn’t just fall into your lap, you give up or you let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. You’re just waiting for someone else to hand you the answers, to make the decisions for you. Mike, your parents, Maya.”
“Well, if I’m so lazy and immature, why did you even bother with me?”
“Because you have the potential to be this amazing person. You’re smart and you’re funny and you can be so brave. You’ve grown so much since you’ve come up here and you’re just going to give it all up.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I yelled. “Who appointed you the great determiner of personal growth? And stop trying to pretend that you’re mad about the newsletter thing.
When you’re really mad about Mike being here. I can’t help that he managed to remember the way.”
“This is about you, Lacey,” he said, taking my arms in his hands with just enough force to hold me in one place. “This is about you being unable to just move on and let Mike go. Stop letting it fester. It would really suck, forty years down the road, to look back on a lifetime of being petty and resentful, and think, ‘Well, at least I took him down with me.”
I jerked away from his grip. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”
“Right, because I don’t get a say. I mean, it’s not like we’re in a relationship or anything. You’ve made it loud and clear we’re just two people having friendly sex, right? Fuck buddies?”
“Don’t,” I growled stalking toward my door. And damned if he didn’t follow me, his voice growing louder and angrier with every step.
‘I mean, I guess I should be grateful that some divorcée just wants to jump me and then walk away like I’m some anatomicaly correct prop. But somehow it hurts my feelings a little bit. I’m not stupid, Lacey. I see you pull back at every chance you get I know how much this freaks you out. You made it pretty clear when you turned into Howard freaking Hughes after you met my parents. I just don’t understand why. We’re good together. I’ve made it clear how much I care about you. You know I wouldn’t hurt you. Why are you working so hard to keep from calling this what it is?”
“And what is it, exactly?” I asked, fighting the tears flooding the corners of my eyes. “Are we going steady? Are you going to give me an ID bracelet and a box of conversation hearts? Do you want to get married? Because I’ve been there, done that, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready to do it again. So what’s the point, Monroe?”
“The point is that I love you. And it really pisses me off that you don’t want to hear that.”
“Because it’s got to be on your terms!” I yelled. “It’s got to be on your timetable, your way. You know, maybe it’s not that I don’t want to be in a relationship, maybe it’s that I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. You’re always pushing and judging and trying to make me change into the person that - I don’t know - is worthy of you? I mean, you wouldn’t even talk to we until I proved that I was low-maintenance enough for you. I don’t want to be your pet project. I’ve already tried living with a man whose standards I couldn’t meet and I’m not going to do it again.”
“Stop making this about Mike. I am not your husband.”
“You’re right, you’re not.”
“Grow up, Lacey.”
“Fuck you, Monroe.”
25 • A Step Back
************************************************************************************************
When everything imploded with Mike, I prided myself on the fact that I hadn’t shown up at anyone’s door crying hysterically and looking for a sympathetic ear, despite the fact that such a juicy piece of gossip would have made me welcome in any home in town.
After my fight with Monroe, I felt that I was due.
“Honey, what happened?” Emmett cried, opening the door to find me tearstained and disheveled.
“Monroe… fight… labels!” I sobbed as he took my suitcase.
“She had a fight over Marilyn Monroe and labels?” a low voice sounded from the dining room.
I opened my eyes and realized that there were three men sitting at Emmett’s dining room table, sipping wine and staring at me like I had an extra head. The table was sumptuously spread with dim sum, rice noodles, and a couple of Asian vegetables I didn’t recognize.
“Em, I’m so sorry!” I gasped. “I didn’t know you had company.”
“Oh, sweetie, you just made a rather bland evening that much more interesting,” he whispered, tucking his hand through my elbow. “Seriously, Kirk just finished his fourth retelling of his entire cruise to Alaska … with his mother. Can you imagine? I mean if he’d gone somewhere interesting, that would be one thing. But he spent fifteen minutes describing whales surfacing. You’ve saved us all.”
He wrapped his arm around me and said in a much louder voice, “Now come in and have a good cry, and we’ll sympathize.”
“I’m sorry about this,” I said to the guests, only one of whom I recognized - Emmett’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Peter. Emmett made the introductions. The guys stood and helped me to my chair as if I were the walking wounded. Thomas, a whippet-thin man with three earrings and a healthy head of silver-blond hair, poured me a glass of white wine and patted my head.
“Emmett told us all about you,” Kirk gushed. He seemed very young and still had a bit of the baby-fat look around his chin. “You are so brave. I just don’t know if I could ever hold my head up if something like that happened to me -”
Thomas cleared his throat and shook his head. “So what’s got you so upset, Lacey? Emmett told us you were doing so well.”
“Post-divorce stress disorder?” Peter suggested. “I know I only met Mike once or twice, Lace, but I just did not like that man. It’s okay to be uptight and it’s okay to be boring, but not at the same time.”
“No.” I sniffed. “Mike had nothing to do with it, really, even though he technically started the fight and then ran off, as usual. Monroe was just being such an asshole, telling me how great I could be if I would just change. I’m really tired of people telling me what about my personality needs fixing.”
“So we’re not talking about Marilyn Monroe, then,” Thomas said speculatively.
“Monroe’s my… I don’t know what to call him, which was part of the problem, really. He’s upset with me because I refuse to put a label on us.”
Peter nodded. “That makes more sense than what I had in mind.”
“It’s her neighbor up at Chez Divorcée. You should see this guy,” Emmett said. “Legs that go on forever, biceps the size of my head, and his ass -”
I frowned. “Let’s just say he’s doable and move on.”
“Sooo doable.” He sighed. When he saw my face, he flinched. “Crossing a line?” I nodded. “Sorry.”
“So how long did you two date?” Will asked, seeming nonplussed by our “do-ability” sidebar.
“We didn’t really date so much as just hang out all the time, talk, and make each other meals.”
“Sounds sort of perfect,” Thomas said, tilting his head.
“It was. It was kind of perfect. I mean, I was fortunate to have two functioning brain cells after the e-mail thing, although I suspect those cells spend most their time arguing. And I met this guy, and he was all prickly and mysterious, but I dug that.”
“Prickly could work,” Peter conceded. “As long as it was paired with hot, prickly could work.”
“We ignored each other completely for a while, or at least Iignored him, while he tried to figure out why I was ignoring him. And then he just started being nice to me. We became friends. We hung out, talked about stuff we were interested in. We had athletic, spontaneous, no-strings-attached sex.”
“Baby’s first booty call. I am so proud,” Emmett said, wiping a mock tear from his eye.
“We continued to have the friendship. Then I met his family, he met my ex, and everything got weird.”
“Emmett, you said she sucked at relationships!” Kirk exclaimed. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Emmett!” I yelled. “That’s not fair! I’ve only had two relationships in the last decade!”
“Sounds healthier than my last three relationships,” Peter said.
“I was at least one of those relationships,” Emmett said. “Ass.”
Peter shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
“So what went wrong, Lacey?” asked Thomas, who seemed to be the group moderator.
“He found out that I’d been offered a job writing e-mail newsletters for other woman like me, and he told me he thought it was a bad idea. He got really upset about it, thought it would damage my soul or something. I told him I’d drop it, but I was still considering it. I mean, the woman who offered me the job kept upping the salary -”