Arriving in San Francisco two days later doesn’t exactly bring the hometown warmth I’d hoped. I look back at the plane, wondering what lies ahead. My mother couldn’t pick me up at the airport, and, naturally, this brings up memories of standing alone in front of the school with the sinking feeling she’d forgotten me again. There’s something terribly tragic about a mother who forgets her child. Well, perhaps tragic is too strong a word, but if you’re below your mother’s radar, it hardly helps issues. All I’m saying.
Bless my mother’s heart, she is as sweet as pie, gentle as a kitten, but she’s the sort, that if her head wasn’t attached…let’s just say she’d be only slightly handicapped that day.
I haven’t been back home in two years, and I’m sort of thinking it’s her job to pick me up at the airport, but one can’t be disappointed if they have no expectations. She probably would have forgotten me anyway, so it’s just as well. I sold the Porsche to a local dealer. He’s going to find me a used Mini Cooper. I’ve decided I’m not the Prius type. I saw one before I left that said, “Your SUV sucks, My hybrid sips.” I thought, yeah, that’s not me. I don’t want to be identified with the obnoxious, save-the-earth types. Sad, but true. I’ll stay off private jets and recycle instead.
I’m homeless. Carless. And I’m relationshipless. I’m alone. What an odd feeling. I want to ask Jay what he thinks, but that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m single now. I don’t get—strike that—have to ask anyone.
Angry whispers smack my ears. There’s someone else, I hear them taunt. Shame covers me like molasses when I think about my husband and another woman. Wasn’t it bad enough he didn’t love me? Why’d he have to wait until there was someone else?
And then after I relive the shame, it’s as if I’m flying, free from that burden. The puddle of molasses left for someone else to clean up. Someone else has to try to please him, the happy voices say. Still, I’m left to wonder about my future. I thought I’d have children by now. Can I have children? Maybe I’m infertile. After all, I’m twenty-eight and in eight years of marriage. Nothing. Those were my prime years, and if nothing happened, well…
The fact is, I’d be attached to Jay forever if there were a child involved. There was no manner for this to end well. Jay didn’t want what I wanted. He only wanted the illusion of marriage. My body soars a little higher, farther from the sticky mess behind me. Not really, but I feel better for the moment, and it takes my mind off the fact that no one picked me up at the airport.
After a harrowing taxi ride from SFO, I let myself into my childhood home. There should be some childhood memories stirring, but, really, I just feel bad my parents never water their lawn. Their poor neighbors. The house is mostly surrounded by juniper bushes, which are the nastiest smelling and most painful of foliage to get thrown into as a child. (I had a brother, did I mention that?)
As I push the door in with my suitcase, I hear the fridge close.
“What are you doing here?” My brother Mike, a live version of Shaggy, Scooby Doo’s friend, comes out of the kitchen with a hot dog in his hand. No bun, no condiments, just the hot dog. He bites off the end and pushes it toward me. “Want some?”
“No.” I grimace. “And eww.”
He shrugs. “Too good for hot dogs now? Rich people don’t eat hot dogs?”
“No, I just don’t like to share meat, all right? Can’t you get a napkin? A plate maybe?”
“No, Martha Stewart, I can’t. Mom is at Grandma’s. She know you’re coming?”
“It’s been two years since I’ve been here!”
“Yeah, so? You think we should all bow or throw out the red carpet or something.”
“Mom knows,” I say, walking toward my room and halt in the doorway. The room now boasts a couch and a giant-screen TV. It’s way too big for the area, like being in the front row at a movie theater. “Where’s my bed?”
“Isn’t it at your house?” Mike asks.
“Not anymore. Didn’t Mom tell you Jay left me? Or I guess I should say he left me at the doorstep because he didn’t go anywhere.”
“Harsh.”
“Yeah.”
“He was a wuss, anyhow. He probably fell in love, and now that you’re gone, he’ll see it was just his reflection in the mirror.” Mike laughs and takes another bite of his hot dog. “What kind of guy carries a designer briefcase?” Mike shakes his head. “On his honeymoon!”
“It’s an L.A. thing.”
“You know who you should date?” he says, wagging the hot dog for emphasis.
“I’m not dating anyone, Mike. I’m going to get a job. I’m embarking on a new career.”
“At the Gap?”
I sigh. “Maybe. What are you doing here anyway?”
“I live here.”
I raise my brows. “At Mom’s house? Since when?”
“Since I got laid off from Best Buy. You know, I help out and stuff.”
“Doing what?”
“Taking the garbage out. I take Mom’s car to get the oil changed, that kind of thing. Mom’s not as young as she used to be.”
I’ll let that slide. The idea of my mother infirm is a bit ridiculous, since she’ll have energy to control everyone’s life from her deathbed. Perhaps, she’s slightly codependent on her aging son needing her, but that’s another issue altogether. “Are you working?” I ask him.
“What are you, the unemployment office? I just told you, I run errands for Mom.”
“I’m just asking.” I shrug.
“Well, don’t. You don’t come around here enough to ask questions, and if you’re staying, it’s not like you’re any better than me, all right?”
He’s got a point. “I was just asking.”
“Get off your high horse, Haley, you’re not perfect anymore. Mom’s got your bed in her sewing room.” He thrusts his chin toward the hallway. “She’ll be home soon. Grandma’s rest home was having a craft fair, so she had to stake out the competition. Other grannies with dueling needles, you know?”
I hesitate outside Mike’s room, which hasn’t changed a bit. He’s got posters of bikini-clad Jessica Alba and old Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendars lining the walls, even a Denise Richards on his ceiling. I roll my eyes. Mike is the reason Jay Cutler will always have a job. If men with seventeen-year-old mentalities didn’t exist, Hollywood would be out of business, and judging by my brother, they’re not going anywhere. They’re playing video games at their mamas’ houses as we speak.
This is my older brother by the way. He’s thirty, in fact. He just plays a seventeen-year-old in real life. He’s home flailing a hot dog around and giving me life advice.
I toss my bag on the twin bed in my mother’s sewing room. She has it all daintily set up in a peach polyester quilted bedspread with coordinating colored lace pillows. “It looks like Princess Belle threw up in here.” But I’m not exactly in a position to be selective, am I?
I hear the garage door rumble up and ready myself to meet my mother. I sit on my bed and practice smiling. Too fake. I try it without teeth. “Hi, Mom!” I say aloud. Too enthusiastic. I’ll wing it.
Mom has teddy bears all around the room, staring ominously straight ahead. It’s like being in one of those rooms with the paintings, whose eyes follow you. People buy this stuff. Teddy bears made out of whatever sale fabric she could find at Wal Mart, quilts from old clothes at the Goodwill, stuffed monkeys from old gym socks. She was an environmentalist before it was cool. And say what you will about Hollywood and its recycled glass countertops, you still have to get rid of an old countertop. My mom’s got them on landfill material because she has her original orange laminate countertop to prove it.
I open the dresser to unpack, but it’s filled with quilts she’s readying for the show, so I sit back down on the bed and wait.
“She here, already?” I hear my mom ask Mike.
“Your sewing room, already judging me,” Mike shouts over a video game where he’s blowing up various tanks or learning to steal cars and shoot cops.
“Darn it, I thought I would be here! Now Michael, Haley’s just been traumatized. Be kind to your sister. We’re her source of strength right now.”
God help me.
I stand up and brush my jeans, trying to slow my breathing. “Hi, Mom,” I say as she enters the doorway. Good. That was good. But it’s no use; at the sight of her I start crying. She bustles toward me and envelops me in a tight hug and I fall into it like a little girl socked on the playground.
“There. There. It’s all right, Haley. It will be all right.”
I nod against her shoulder.
She steps back and clasps my arms. “Have you two seen a counselor to work through this?”
“Mom, I’m pretty sure he’s with someone else. I don’t know how you counsel through that. I think it’s pretty much a given that it’s over.” Call me naïve, but when a man is willing to hire lawyers to be away from you, I’m thinking that’s more than a subtle hint.
“You never know, Selma Hampton and her husband were both about to marry other people, then”—she claps her hand—“God took over and repaired their hearts. Never underestimate what God can do.”
“I don’t underestimate God, Mom, but I think you’re vastly overestimating Jay.”
“Maybe he didn’t sow enough wild oats before you got married, and he’s going to have his midlife crisis. Did you–” She pauses. “Did you push him into marriage?
“He was almost forty when we got married, rich and living in Hollywood. If he sowed anything else…well never mind. He was Prince Charles for the greater L.A. basin and”—I roll my eyes—“I thought he was a catch.”
“Well, so did Princess Diana, dear. You’re in good company. I have to admit, I’m glad you’re telling me this, it makes me feel better about what I did today.” She hops onto the bed and puts her hands in her lap. “I just had a feeling, and I acted on it.”
Uh-oh. “What did you do today, Mom?”
“Of all things, I ran into Gavin at the gas station, and I told him you were back.”
“Would that be the gas station by his shop? And by any chance did you happen to go into the shop?”
She looks down at her Lady Macbeth hands, then looks away from me. “And I relayed the unfortunate circumstances of your return.”
“Of course you did. Nothing like letting my high school boyfriend know I’m still a loser.”
“Now, Haley, don’t say it like that. I thought he might cheer you up. He always was such a nice boy.” Unspoken: You should have married him like I told you to.
“Cheer me up? What does that mean?” I ask fearfully.
“I invited him to join us for dinner. He’s not married yet, you know. I know it’s not appropriate for you to date yet, but I thought getting reacquainted wouldn’t hurt.”
“Peachy.” I sigh.
“You’re mad at me.”
“No, Mom, it was sweet of you to think of me, thank you.” I pat her hands. “But your hopes for me and happily-ever-after are not meant to be. The divorce isn’t final. Whatever Jay has done to me, I respect those vows.”
“Nonsense. You’ve been living in that fairy-tale land too long. I want to be a grandmother, and in case you haven’t noticed, your brother Mike isn’t exactly speeding toward the altar unless it’s a computerized car that will take him. You’re my best chance, Haley.”
“Then I would go out and buy a lottery ticket, Mom, because you’ll have better luck with that. The odds have got to be better.”
She pats my leg, “I have to go get the roast in. Gavin always liked my roasts. The Golden Globes are on television tonight. I thought we might watch them together. Maybe you can tell us if you know anyone famous on TV.”
I nod. “Sure, Mom. Can you call Gavin and cancel though? I don’t feel right about that even if Jay is done with me.”
“It’s just dinner with the family, Haley. It will cheer you up and be like old times. When you used to smile. Why don’t you change your clothes, darling?”
I glance down at my jeans and blazer. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Well, you haven’t seen Gavin in a long time.” She shrugs and flashes her eyes. “Don’t you make some sort of effort?”
Subtle as a linebacker. “No, Mom. I really don’t—” I shake my head, not that it matters, she’s already taken care of everything. I notice where my uncanny ability at not having an opinion started. Then I remember Jay’s many tactics. I decide to take a page from his playbook. “Do you really think that’s appropriate, Mom? For a married woman? Would the ladies at church approve?”
She has a momentary expression of terror. “I didn’t think of it that way.” My mom, God bless her, believes the key to happiness is marriage, and I’m so thrilled that for her, it has been. For me, it’s been the doorway to a nightmare, and I don’t ever want to see that threshold again. I tried. What I hate most is that I sound just like Hamilton Lowe. Maybe I should study law and become his female equivalent.
“We don’t want to get the tongues wagging, do we? I’ve only been out of my house for two months. Let’s finish it appropriately.”
“All right, dear. I’ll back off if it makes you uncomfortable, but you and Gavin have always been friends, since you were toddlers, in fact, so there’s no reason he can’t come and cheer you up and have dinner.” She crosses her arms and her claws come out. “Besides, who says he’s panting to be around you?”
“No one, Mom. Just so you know, I’m not one of those women who pines after the one who got away. Instead, I sort of wish more than one had got away.”
“Don’t talk like that. You sound like a bitter, old spinster.”
“I am a bitter, old spinster. Okay, maybe I’m not that old. I just got married first, so I get off on a technicality, but I’m a spinster just the same.”
“Did I say anything about marriage with Gavin? Get changed. I’m still going to have him over, and it just makes a man feel nice when you take time to look beautiful for him. It makes him feel virile.”
“Ew, Mom. It’s not my job to make a man feel virile, all right? I’m embarking on a divorce, that doesn’t exactly make me desirable if you know what I’m saying.”
“Making a man feel virile is important. Your father and I—”
“No!” I shout, as I stick my fingers in my ear and start singing until she leaves the room. I shudder as I close the door. “Ick. Will my mother ever get a filter?”
“I heard that!” she yells through the door. I let my forehead pound on the door.
I brush a little powder over my face and climb into sweats. Not yoga pants, but sloppy, holey UCLA sweats. Firstly, because I can and secondly, because I am not letting Gavin think I took any effort.
You never do forget your first love. Oh, you may try, but those first sloppy kisses, the rules your father sets for you, the outfits you wore, your hairstyle at the prom, they never fully evaporate because the emotions are so new, so full of hope. Somewhere inside of us all, there’s that innocence that we wish we’d appreciated more when we had hold of its power. Okay, a little lip gloss won’t hurt.
As I wander out to the kitchen, the doorbell rings, and my mother gets all aflutter. “That’s him!” she bellows. “Now, Haley, don’t talk about the divorce. He already knows it’s final next month.”
“Did you tell him my cup size, too?”
“Haley, don’t talk that way. Trashy women talk that way. I didn’t raise you like that.” She checks the oven. “How incredibly vulgar you can be.”
“I know. Hollywood taught me. You raised me to be perfectly normal. What a cruel twist of fate I am.”
“I did raise you to be perfectly normal.”
“You’re off the hook, Mom.” I kiss her on the cheek. “I’m weird all by myself. Bad DNA.”
“Get the door, smart aleck.”
I open the door and instead of an aged high-school boyfriend, there’s a young Fed Ex driver with a package. Who, I must say, is an improvement if he weren’t jailbait. “Haley Cutler?”
“That’s me.”
“Sign here.”
I take the package, slam the door, and rip open the package. Inside, instead of a lipstick or a new pair of shoes is a copy of the divorce papers from the courts, with the luminous date: March 14, when it will be final. I even have to hate deliverymen now. They used to bring me nice things.
“Is it Gavin?” My mom comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Haley, what’s the matter, you’re white as a sheet.”
“It’s my divorce papers.” I look up.
“You knew it was coming. What difference does it make?”
“I guess, as pathetic as it might be, there was a part of me that thought Jay would change his mind, Mom. That he’d change his mind, and this was all a rotten misunderstanding. I thought he’d realize—”
She presses her hand on my back and rubs my shoulders. “You signed the papers, Haley. Jay has never been one to mess around legally. Not if it cost him something.”
“I know, but I thought my signing would scare him, that he’d chicken out and worry he couldn’t run his life without me.” Truthfully, I thought he’d fall on his knees and beg for forgiveness. I thought the Jay I fell in love with would return to me, and maybe we’d renew our vows in a romantic ceremony with rose petals up the aisle, perhaps our son as a ring bearer…gosh, I’m pathetic.
The doorbell rings again. I open the door to my prom date, ten years later, and it’s not the “after” one hopes for. He’s bald, has a beer belly and didn’t bother to iron his button-up shirt. More ammunition for why Jay mystified me when I met him. But he has a twinkle in his gaze and he’s still the same, warm boy from high school, with an offset grin and shining, blue eyes. He reminds me of the hope I once had for my future.
“Hi, Gavin.” I try to muster a little enthusiasm, but it sounds just like I feel.
He holds out a bouquet of sunflowers. “I thought these might cheer you up. You’re still as beautiful as ever. More so.” The way Gavin says these things, it’s not a pickup at all, and I can tell he feels exactly about this meeting as I do. We’re friends, and that’s all we’re ever going to be, despite my mother’s desperate and oh-so-transparent attempts.
I take the offered flowers and let him kiss my cheek. “Thanks, Gavin, you always know how to cheer me up.” I shut the door behind him. “Well, you always did anyway. Let me get these in some water.” But before I can escape to the kitchen, my mother is there to take them from me.
“Go talk to him.” She pushes me toward the foyer. “Good to see you, Gavin,” Mom trills. “You look like you’re eating well.”
I’m sure that’s a compliment in some third world country, but I’m humiliated to my core. Why didn’t she just call him Porky?
Gavin pats his stomach. “I never miss a meal, Mrs. Adams.” He kisses my mother’s cheek. “Especially one of yours when it’s offered. I saw the quilts for Africa. As usual, you had the most beautiful.”
Now, you might think that Gavin is a bit of a brown-noser, but the truth is, he’s one hundred percent authentic. He means what he says, and he rarely says anything unkind. He makes me feel unworthy standing next to him. I can’t even keep my thoughts that nice. Is it any wonder our relationship didn’t work out?
I find my bearings. “You look great, Gavin. Very happy.”
He nods. “I am happy, Haley. The store’s doing well. I added siding to the retail line. We have to compete with box hardware stores, but they can’t compete on customer service. I get them there every time. People expect quality when they’re buying new windows. They deserve to be treated well, it’s a big expenditure.”
“You were a born retailer, Gavin. Your dad would have been proud.”
He stares right into my eyes and drops the small talk. “I would do anything to take this away from you, Haley. You didn’t deserve this. You always were the prettiest girl in town, inside and out, and nothing has changed. I’m glad to see he didn’t get that part of you.”
“You’re the first person to think I didn’t deserve this, so thank you.” I feel a lump rise in my throat as I realize Gavin has more empathy in his little finger than Jay ever possessed. How did I get it so very wrong?
“No, I’m not. Just the first person to say so, maybe.” He pats his stomach again. “So you know how I’m staying so healthy?”
He makes me laugh. “No, how are you staying so healthy?”
“I’m a bachelor in your mother’s church. The sewing group is determined to see me married off, and it involves a lot of pot roast. They bring their single daughters and beef. Sometimes pork.”
We laugh together. “So the big question is, are you avoiding marriage for the pot roast?”
“The shoe just hasn’t fit anyone yet,” he jokes.
“I would have thought you would have married Susie Anderson in college. She was such a sweetheart.”
“You didn’t think so back then.”
“Well, she wasn’t me, and back then, I didn’t think she was good enough for you.”
“So what changed?”
“Marriage isn’t what I thought at all. If you can find someone who loves you back, that’s a gift you should grab and never relinquish.”
“Apparently, Susie thought so too because she found someone who did.”
“Oh.” I start to walk toward the living room. “Come on and sit down.” My brother is playing a loud video game when we enter. “Mike, go get a life.” See? I can’t even be nice for five minutes in front of Gavin!
Mike groans and shuts off the television, slinks down the hall, and slams the door to his room. “Nice to have you back!” he yells through the door.
Gavin clears his throat and sits back on the couch, “I always thought I’d be married, but it never happened. The truth is now I don’t know that I could be. The business takes so many hours. I don’t really think of myself as the fatherly type, and I never met a woman who made me think about marriage.” He looks at me, his brow furrowed. “Sorry.”
“I’m not offended, Gavin, I admire your ability to know who you are, I suppose. What do you do with yourself to keep busy?”
“I have season tickets to the Giants and the 49ers. I organize trips for us older singles at church, and I work. It’s a full life.”
“Is it?”
“It is, Haley. You’ll get used to it. What about you? What else have you been doing besides being a wife?
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Too personal?”
“No, I realized I hadn’t offered, that’s all.”
“Nothing for me. I’m sure your mom will have a nice, cold glass of milk waiting at dinner.”
I look into his steady eyes and despite how I’ve learned to keep everything inside, my truth comes bubbling out like a Napa geyser. “I don’t ever want to feel this way again, Gavin. It’s not worth the pain.”
“I hate to hear that, Haley. You always had so much passion for life. I envied that about you. You can’t let one mistake change who you are. You need to buy a really sparkly outfit and go for a night on the town. I’m game if you are.”
“I’ve moved on from just sparkly,” I say with my shoulders straight, but then I burst into giggles. “My last closet purchase that I never showed to Jay?”
“Yes?”
“Giraffe-print boots. And they’re kind of furry.”
Gavin starts to laugh out loud.
“And I love them.”
“What are you two laughing about in there?” my mother asks.
“Well, a man who can’t see the good humor in giraffe-skin boots isn’t worth having.”
“All I’m saying.” It’s amazing that I can pour my heart out to Gavin, but it’s like I’m back in my graduating class. I trust Gavin. I always have, and I always will. He could never do to me what Jay did. Of course, he could never make me feel like Jay either, and that is why I’m steering clear of men. I have no common sense. The boots should tell me that much.
“The Golden Globes are starting, Haley. Turn them on. I’ll bring dinner out on TV trays.” My mom is giddy. Is it any wonder I have a thing for sparkles? I started young watching every awards show on television. The American Music Awards, the Grammy Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, and of course, the granddaddy of them all: the Oscars.
“Mom, we can watch after dinner.” I think this is where my love of tacky may have started.
“No, no dear. It will be fun. Gavin knows we watch all the shows.”
The really sad thing is that Gavin gets up and goes to the hall closet and pulls out six aluminum TV trays circa 1963 and sets them up in front of the couch.
“Not much changes around here, huh?” I ask.
“The difference between you and me is I see that as a positive. If twenty years from now I’m still eating pot roast on a TV tray, I’m good with that.”
My mother scuttles out of the kitchen with classic glasses with wheat designs (they go with the burnt orange appliances and Formica) and a gallon of milk. She places one on each TV tray and pours a tall glass of milk for each of us. “They say Grey’s Anatomy is going to sweep this year.”
“My vote is for Ugly Betty,” I tell her.
“What would you know of Ugly Betty, princess?” my dad asks as he wanders into the room. My dad talks like the dad on any sitcom in America, but there’s no actual emotional connection. He’s old school. Notice he didn’t say hello to me when he got home, even though I haven’t seen him since Christmas when he and mom graciously visited me holed up in the Wilshire. He talks through my mother, if he talks to me at all. Unless someone is present to hear his Leave It to Beaver impression, he doesn’t bother.
“Hi, Dad, when did you come in?”
He comes over and kisses me on the cheek. “Welcome home, Haley.” He sits down. “Gavin, how’s the window business treating you? You seeing things clearly?” My dad laughs at his own joke. Like Gavin has never heard that one before.
“Better than ever. The more freeways that get built, the more double-and even triple-paned windows necessary. I added siding to the business too. You might call me for a quote. I noticed you could use some upkeep.”
“I might do that,” my dad says.
Probably about the time he’ll get around to mowing the lawn, which, by the way, “Why isn’t Mike mowing the lawn?”
“What?” Gavin asks.
“If Mike is living here and doing errands, why does the lawn look like it does?”
“Mike’s back is not good, honey.” My mom sets my glass of milk in front of me. “He hurt it working at Best Buy. Those televisions just get bigger and bigger, don’t you know?”
“Actually, they’re getting thinner. Let me help you, Mom.”
“No, no, you sit. Your friend is here, and you have a lot of catching up to do.” She glimmers at Gavin.
I’m not divorced yet, Mom. Let’s allow the body to cool, shall we?
The Pre-Awards walk on the red carpet starts, and we take our pick of obnoxious hosts, finally settling on Star Jones’s version of dissing and kissing.
“Jay’s movie is nominated this year,” I announce, trying to keep the melancholy out of my voice. It’s the first one I ever produced myself, is the truth of it. And Jay’s first serious film. I talked him into the script. I found the star, Rachel, on television one night and deemed her perfect for the part. Naturally, he’d never remember it that way. But that is my movie, my actress, my nomination. “The one with Rachel Barlin in it.”
“Rachel Barlin, I love her,” Gavin says, and I can’t help it, I shoot him a dirty look. Like I care that he loves her. Who doesn’t? She’s gorgeous, has a perfect, albeit-enhanced figure, and comes off as the girl next door in a vixen’s costume. Men fall for that trap every time. Same old game. “What’s not to love?” Gavin wiggles his eyebrows.
Gee, let me count the ways. Late-night phone calls to my husband, whining about how her trailer needed better water, a more comfortable bed, a better makeup artist, blah blah blah. She expected Jay to fix it all. When she argued with the director, she’d call Jay. When she didn’t have Evian coming out of her tap in her trailer, she’d call Jay.
“I think she’s pathetic,” I hear myself say. “Too needy, don’t you think?”
“She’s so beautiful, and she seems like a really sweet girl.”
“Seems being the operative word. Men see what they want to see. If someone’s had a career in the porn industry, a guy can rationalize how she only did it to pay her way through college. It’s a stereotype, you know. The hooker with a heart of gold thing. Some of them have hearts of stone and use that old stereotype to get whatever they want. You all want to believe she’s Rahab, not Jezebel, and you never believe other women, even though we have radar for that kind of thing.”
“Haley”—my mom smiles proudly—“you do remember your Sunday school lessons. Of course I’d rather have you remember something other than the prostitute stories, but one hopes they’re in there too.”
“When Mrs. Kensington talks about hookers, it’s not something you forget,” I explain.
“Well, I see a beautiful woman with a sweet spirit. She reminds me of you with brown hair, Haley,” Gavin comments. “You know,” he says, pointing a fork at the television, “I bet she’s really small-town. She grew up in the Midwest with church potlucks and county fairs.”
“My point exactly. If she’s small-town, you think her small-town mama would have taught her calling another woman’s husband in the middle of the night is what the girls-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks did. I see a spoiled brat who uses her wiles to get whatever she wants.”
“Haley!” Gavin raises his eyebrows. “Is this upsetting you?”
“She is an actress, Gavin. Maybe she’s better than you give her credit for.”
At that comment, Star Jones starts to interview Rachel Barlin. Even the sight of Rachel makes the hair on my arms rise and I want to fast-forward her, but my mom hasn’t heard of TiVo. She’s wearing a sparkly, gold gown, and while I’m sure it isn’t sequins, it does sparkle. I have to wonder if now my fetish for glitter would be acceptable.
“Look, there she is!” Gavin says, sitting up on the sofa. “Speak of the devil.”
“Exactly,” I say.
“She is so hot.” Then he corrects himself. “Really beautiful, you know? Like the girl next door,” he says wistfully, as if he’s heard nothing I’ve said.
My heart takes a dive as I see the man standing behind her is my Jay. The same Jay who said he was leaving for Switzerland. The same Jay who told me I didn’t need a gown for the Golden Globes because “we” weren’t attending. I look around to see if anyone has noticed yet, but everyone’s eyes are fixed on the glittering Rachel. Jay’s watching her too, in a way he looked at me, before we got married. Something inside of me falls dead to the ground.
Star fawns over her. “Rachel, you look beautiful. Your dress is…”
“Vintage Mackie,” she coos.
“Vintage Mackie,” I repeat. “In other words, no one would lend her a new one. She got Cher’s castoffs from decades gone by.”
“Who is this handsome man on your arm?” Star asks. “Is this the new love of your life?”
That would be my husband. My eyes are transfixed on her. Say no, Rachel. Please.
She giggles coquettishly, but she doesn’t answer the question. “This is my producer, Jay Cutler.” She takes a finger and smooths it along his jawline. “Isn’t he wonderful? Everyone said I couldn’t handle a serious role like this one, but Jay fought for me. He believed in me, and the rest is history.”
It’s here that I catch it; their eye contact. It’s something any wife would understand, any woman would notice in her man, and I feel my strength leave me, but I push the TV tray in front of me as recognition pummels me. My eyes fill with tears.
My mom gets up and shuts off the television set, and we’re all sitting around it with TV trays and no picture.
“How about them 49ers?” my dad asks, and though I’m no football fan, I know their season is well over.
“Haley, are you all right?” my mother asks.
“The settlement isn’t enough,” I say quietly. I want revenge.
“Haley, the fight isn’t worth the money. You’ve wasted enough on him.”
I stand up. “If Jay is dating one of Hollywood’s rising stars, it increases his tabloid value,” I explain.
“It’s not worth it, Haley,” Gavin says.
“Honey, you don’t want to do this,” my dad adds.
“Hamilton is about to find out just how ditsy this trophy wife is. I may be tacky and inappropriate, but I am not stupid.” I take the papers and walk to the hallway.
“Haley,” my mother cautions. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going home to claim what’s mine.”
“I thought her husband’s name was Jay. Who’s Hamilton?” Gavin asks.
A man who is about to regret the day he met me. That’s who.