“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.
“See?” 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.