Sometimes it happens suddenly. Like death. Or an accident. Sometimes it’s more gradual. Like a pipe that corrodes slowly over a number of years when exposed to the elements. For Isabel Stevens, it was a slow unraveling. So slow, in fact, that she was only vaguely aware that she had become a stark raving bitch.
October 1, 2003:
The alarm clock trumpeted its ugly tune at six a.m. Isabel reached over and slammed it off. It was Saturday, but it may as well have been Monday for all the hours and days she’d been working lately. Michael slid over and pulled her to him. Time for their once-a-week lovemaking session. Except that today, she was not in the mood. Again. She extricated herself from his grasp, climbed out of bed, and padded toward the bathroom.
“What the hell, Is?” Michael said.
Jaw clenched, Isabel stopped in her tracks and whirled around to find her husband propped up on one elbow, his dark blond hair tousled. A look she used to find sexy as hell. Now she found it...irritating, along with everything else about him. “Sorry, Michael, I just can’t fake it today.”
“That’s three weeks in a row.” His whiny voice grated on her nerves. “What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know, Michael. But a little romance every now and then wouldn’t hurt. Is that too much to ask?”
Isabel was a lot of things, but predictable had never been one of them. Lately her sex life, along with pretty much everything else, had become predictable. Predictable and boring. A little romance would be good, she thought. She was worth it. Until then, he could take a cold shower for all she cared.
“Ouch! Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”
“That wouldn’t distinguish it from any other day lately.” She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
She emerged a few minutes later wearing running tights, a long-sleeved dry-tech shirt and a windbreaker, her honey-blond hair pulled into a pony-tail. As she sat down on the bed and donned her socks and shoes, she heard Michael banging around in the kitchen. She grinned.
Misery loved company.
She marched through the living room and into the laundry room, tossed a load of clothes into the washing machine, and muttered a comment under her breath about it being finished in thirty minutes and could he please put it in the dryer then.
“Whatever,” he said.
Isabel fisted her hands, drew in a deep breath and counted to three before responding. “Thank you,” she said begrudgingly.
He ignored her, just as she ignored the three buckets, placed strategically throughout the living room to capture the water that had seeped through the ceiling since the early rains began. They were about to spill over, but emptying them was his job. Did she have to do everything?
She took a quick peek out the window before stepping outside, relieved to see that it wasn’t raining. Once outside, she clipped her iPod Shuffle to the waistband of her tights and slipped the buds into her ears. Sheryl Crow was telling her to Run, Baby, Run, and so she did.
Her foul mood lifted and she quickened her pace. Then the wind picked up and it rained. Lightly at first, and then it came down in buckets.
Shit.
The winds howled and the rain blew sideways, pelting her in the face.
Shit, shit, shit.
By the time she reached the turnaround point, the wind was so strong she felt as if she were pushing a Buick.
When she returned home, she slogged through the living room, a river of water behind her, and hovered over one of the buckets. She squeezed the excess water from her hair and grinned when it caused the bucket to overflow. It didn’t matter. The floorboards were already warped.
She glanced up at Michael, who leaned against the wall in the dining room and held a cup of steaming coffee. He grinned, too.
What is he up to?
Isabel stripped off her clothes and shivered in the bathroom as she waited for the water in the shower to run hot. It took longer than usual. Timing was everything when showering, as the hot water tank was approximately the size of a human bladder. Get in, get out. Unless you enjoyed cold showers.
And then it struck her. That son-of-a-bitch had taken a shower while she was gone. And used up all the hot water.
She strolled past him in all her glory, and when she saw the lump of wet clothes still sitting in the washer, she lost it. She stomped into the kitchen, fists and jaw clenched, and stood in front of him.
“God dammit, Michael. Is it too much to ask for you to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer?” She turned toward the living room and pointed. “Or empty the goddamned buckets, for crying out loud?”
Anger flashed in his green eyes and he said nothing for a long moment. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said finally.
“I don’t want to do a lot of things, Michael. Which ‘this’ do you not want to do anymore?”
“Us. You and me.”
Isabel stood, frozen in place, and blinked. “Wh...what do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean I want a divorce.”
Her mouth fell open. A divorce? He wants a divorce? She hadn’t seen that coming.
She stared at him in disbelief, and then turned and marched to the bedroom. After pulling on a pair of sweats, a sweatshirt and flip-flops, she reached into her closet and removed her navy double-breasted Armani suit, a pale blue silk blouse, and her Jimmy Choo Moc Croc pumps. The navy ones, of course.
After she shoved the appropriate under clothing and accessories into her gym bag and grabbed her suit and blouse, Isabel strode back to the kitchen and planted herself in front of him. He was a full head taller than her with a lanky frame and broad shoulders. He peered down at her through narrowed eyes.
She met his gaze and held it for a long, calculated moment while she considered her next move.
“Who is she?” Isabel asked without blinking. She didn’t think she’d net anything, but she tossed out the line anyway.
He shook his head. “Who?”
“The girl you’re fucking,” she said.
Michael shifted from one foot to the other. His gaze dropped to his slippered feet.
Holy shit, she was right! She’d never have guessed him to be the type. Her heart fluttered like a moth in distress and she sucked in a breath through the narrow opening in her throat.
After an interminable silence, he said, “Deby.”
Isabel gripped the kitchen counter and drew in a deep breath. She pushed it out slowly as the news sunk in. She knew she should say or do or feel something, but nothing came to mind. The plop plopping of the water as it struck the overfilled buckets filled the air.
Michael shifted his weight again but his gaze never left the ground.
“I wish you and Deby all the happiness in the world,” she said, mustering as much civility as she could, given the circumstances. And then she walked quietly out of the over-priced fixer-upper they’d bought five years before and hadn’t done a thing to. Two bedrooms, one bath, and a $750,000 mortgage. All so he could have an address in Palo Alto. The heart of the Silicon Valley.