Jackpot Summer, page 5
Doug would be walking in the door any minute from his flight. She slipped a scoop-neck top over her head and stepped into black jeans with enough stretch to almost qualify as leggings. Then she quickly glided a mascara wand through her lashes and applied shimmery gloss to her lips just as Doug’s footsteps sounded in the entryway. Laura was nervous. It was the first time she could remember feeling anything toward Doug other than a desire to recite her to-do list and complain about the girls.
“Welcome home,” she called out over the second-floor railing. Her voice sounded three octaves higher than normal and cracked on the third syllable.
“Thanks,” he said, barely looking up. “I’m starving.”
Laura joined him in the kitchen, feeling even more the fool for expecting Doug to notice anything different about her. She didn’t exactly greet him in a negligee. Besides, Doug didn’t realize today was the day their sex life got rejuvenated. For him it was just Thursday. Meatloaf night.
“How was Tucson?” she asked, watching Doug scarf down an apple and a yogurt, his go-to between-meal snack. He was as predictable as her period used to be before she hit perimenopause.
“Fine. The usual,” Doug said, his mouth full.
“Learn anything new?” Laura leaned across the island and propped her elbows on the scuffed countertop, prepared to feign interest in biodegradable floss if necessary.
“Actually, yes. There’s mounting evidence to suggest a daily serving of turmeric can be effective at preventing gingivitis. I’m going to tell my patients to add it to their diet.”
“Wow,” she said, hoping her enthusiasm sounded genuine. “I’ll pick some up at the grocery store.”
“How are you holding up?” Doug asked. He didn’t have to explain that he was referring to Hannah’s unexpected departure.
“Not too bad. She seems happy. The program hasn’t started yet so I’m not sure why she was in such a rush to get down there. Probably some boy. Either way, she had to leave the nest sooner or later. I just wish it had been later.” She toyed with the neckline of her top. “Want a drink or anything? I can pour you a scotch.”
Doug’s spoon froze midair. Finally, she had his attention. This wasn’t business as usual for the Cohens. Routines were being broken left and right.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully while Laura wondered if they even had scotch at home. “Nah, it’ll just put me to sleep.” He brought his spoon to the sink, rinsed it and placed it in the dishwasher. “But thank you.”
As disappointment threatened to overtake her, Laura gave herself a metaphorical pinch. How many of her friends complained their husbands never cleaned up after themselves? That they weren’t appreciative?
Doug’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket, not exactly the action in his pants Laura had been hoping for.
“I have to take this,” he said, looking at the screen. Laura could hear his voice faintly as he moved down the hallway toward the other end of their house. “I’ll see if I can fit you in tomorrow…Yes, yes, I will…Feel better.” Then he laughed, a real hearty chuckle. Had his patient made a joke? A priest, a rabbi and an imam walk in for a root canal?
She listened to him climb the stairs, the sound of his carry-on clattering against the treads. If their house wasn’t already falling apart, she would chastise him for scratching the wood. Instead, she followed him upstairs a few minutes later.
Predictably, he was holding his electric toothbrush. He was meticulous about brushing after eating. Less predictably, he had undressed and had a towel wrapped around his waist.
“The plane was gross,” he said. “Gotta rinse off.”
Laura channeled Mindy’s bawdiness as she poked her with the breadstick. Here goes. “Want company?”
“Are you serious?” It was hard to tell if he was amused or shocked. He ran his fingers through the salt-and-pepper hair that skimmed the rim of his glasses, ostensibly contemplating the offer.
“Yes,” she said, wondering if this was the moment she was meant to start unzipping her jeans.
“I think I’m going to just quickly wash up. But, um, thanks.” He pulled his glasses off, making her practically invisible to his legally blind eyes, and stepped into the stall. The ancient showerhead sputtered to life, drowning out the potential for further discussion.
For a hot second, Laura thought about updating Mindy on the flop. But what was Mindy supposed to do? Take her lingerie shopping? Instruct her in the art of seduction? Laura would sooner die of embarrassment. She had less-bawdy friends to confide in, but instead of calling them, she went back to the kitchen and grabbed a pint of mint chocolate chip from the freezer. After scraping off the freezer burn, Laura dropped a spoonful onto her tongue and sighed with pleasure. Who needed sex?
Doug came downstairs freshly showered, wearing running pants and a slim V-neck undershirt. When they first started dating—what felt like a lifetime ago—Laura was the looker between them. She had thick, wavy hair as a college coed, which lost luster and fullness with each pregnancy. The chestnut color faded with age. She maintained it with salon visits and used a drugstore coloring wand in between, but it seemed like a new gray hair emerged every time she blinked. Her skin sagged at the chin if she wasn’t vigilant about keeping her neck taut. In contrast, her husband, who had been lanky and awkward throughout his twenties and thirties, had blossomed in middle age. He’d discovered exercise at forty and now filled out his clothing like a freshly pumped tire. He looked venerable, not old, with gray hair.
There was probably a brief period when she and Doug met on the ladder of attractiveness, as Laura hobbled down and Doug swiftly climbed. Maybe it happened while they were distracted by the implosion of Doug’s second dental office in Springfield. Or when Emma was being bullied in eighth grade and Laura could think of nothing but pummeling the twats tormenting her daughter. Doug wasn’t demonstrative, one of those “you’re so beautiful” gushing husbands. He’d said such things early on in their courtship and Laura had waved him off. She didn’t need that kind of assurance back then. Now she wondered what he thought about her appearance. If he thought about it at all.
“Want?” She handed her spoon to Doug.
He accepted it, but stopped short as he was about to dive in. “I don’t need it.”
Laura returned the pint to the freezer, realizing she missed the comfort of Doug’s once-pouchy stomach.
“So, I was thinking, since we have to get down the shore to help my dad, why don’t we go early and make a little vacation out of it? I looked online and the Sea Shell has one room left. It’s always a slow week at your office. We can go, like, three days early, before my siblings descend, and enjoy some R and R, just the two of us.”
Doug looked up from his phone. “Sounds expensive.”
What they could and couldn’t afford trailed them like a stinky fart. “It’s not that bad. And we can stay somewhere cheaper. Here, I’ll show you.” She went to grab her laptop from the kitchen, where the Tripadvisor page was open. Earlier in the day, she had gotten lost in the comments. So romantic…Best anniversary trip…Peaceful and restorative…Worth every penny…
“Laura, we need to talk.”
She didn’t recognize her husband’s tone. The cut in her finger began to throb. Of course the slip of the knife was a bad omen—when was the last time she was that careless? We. Need. To. Talk. It was the second time in a week someone in her family had used that phrase.
“We do?”
“We do.”
She should have known. His practice was in trouble again. Doug was normally a good sleeper. Thanks to his volcanic snoring, Laura could always tell when he was out. But ever since the dental clinic, SMILE, with the flashy sign visible from a block away and the all-white-leather-upholstered waiting room, opened in Westfield, Doug tossed and turned. SMILE offered thirty-minute whitening sessions you could schedule through an app. The hygienists featured in their ads looked like supermodels. Laura, wearing a baseball hat pulled low, had gone inside to check it out but fled when she spotted a patient of Doug’s—a real Benedict Arnold—in the waiting room.
“I’ll post some bad reviews for SMILE on Yelp. I can get the girls to do the same. Sophie and Noah too. Don’t worry.” Laura had always been a good problem solver. She wished the people in her life would take advantage of her services more often.
“It’s not that,” Doug said. “I’m not threatened by a factory cleaning teeth on an assembly line. Did you know they offer packages? Like at the car wash.” He snorted.
Laura blanched. Clearly she had struck a nerve. A dental pun she might have expressed out loud if the mood was lighter.
“My practice is fine. That new X-ray machine cost me an arm and a leg and I’m dealing with a few insurance disputes, but my patients are loyal.”
Not Benedict Arnold, Laura thought. If the problem wasn’t financial, then…
She felt the weakness first in her knees, forcing her to clutch the kitchen counter for support. It rose to her stomach, which felt tingly like it did when the roller coasters her daughters forced her to ride climbed to the peak. And then the wooziness hit her head and her vision streaked with a terrifying aura. That tone of Doug’s. It contained a note of something she’d never encountered before in their interactions. Pity.
He sat across from her and took her hand in his. She felt the clamminess of his palm, though that might have been her own. When had it mattered before, what was hers and what was his?
“I wasn’t going to do this now. I figured when Hannah left at the end of summer. Or maybe I’d never say anything at all. Maybe I would feel differently. But hearing you talk about going away together…” Doug’s voice trailed off.
Laura noticed he was pulling his wedding band on and off, a standard fidget of his, but at this moment it seemed telling.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
Doug fiddled with the salt shaker, spilling a few granules. That was known to be bad luck.
“Laura, I haven’t been happy for a while. We’ve grown apart. You see that, don’t you?” Doug removed his glasses, wiped the lenses with his T-shirt and replaced them, as if to convey that everything would be obvious to Laura if she was willing to see things clearly.
“You want to get a…a divorce?” Laura heard the way the D-word came out, like it was a federal crime. She might as well have said, You want to commit murder?
“No. Not at all,” Doug said. He released her hand. “I was thinking a trial separation. Nothing formal.”
“Nothing formal, I see. Casual dress for the implosion of our marriage?”
“C’mon, don’t pick my words apart. I mean we don’t even have to tell the kids. Laur, we’ve been together since we were kids. Got pregnant with Emma when we were only twenty-one.”
Why was he reciting their history? As if she didn’t know it better than he did. She was the one who puked every morning in the bathroom in the Rutgers dorm. She had a C-section scar with the texture of a raisin bisecting her lower abs from her nether region.
“We never got to be young,” he went on. “To see who we are as individuals.”
She was no longer hearing him, not the kind of hearing that involved processing and digesting. That was probably what listening was. And she wasn’t capable. She thought, oddly, of her father’s hearing aids, how sometimes no matter how much he adjusted them, words wouldn’t penetrate.
“Who is she?” A kaleidoscope of gorgeous younger women in skimpy clothing suddenly blinded her, dental hygienists with bleached hair and fake tits wearing heels with their scrubs. Maybe it was the patient that had made him laugh earlier. Did she not mind his yogurt breath? Did she know he built up a nauseating volume of earwax during the winter months?
Doug shook his head. “There’s no one else. It’s not about that. Do you even know who you are without me and the kids? Don’t you want to find out?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “I’m happy. I thought we were happy. We have a beautiful family. I don’t need some self-indulgent midlife crisis the minute the kids are out of the house. Are you bored? Because that’s not my fault! I suggest we do things. You’re the one who says no. We can take up golf. Do you want that? We should have a hobby together.”
“Golf!” Doug snickered. “Do you know how much a round of golf costs?”
She shrugged. He was missing the point. “Who cares?” she finally whispered.
“I care. You care. Do you remember what we did on our last date night?” He air-quoted “date night” and she braced herself. “We brought our laptops to the couch and reviewed our credit card bill. Sure, we had wine and sushi. But we spent the evening trying to figure out how to cut expenses.”
“So what? That’s real life. Grow up!”
Doug tugged at his shaggy hair. He was wearing it longer these days and it was working for him. Was this happening because he was better looking than her now?
“Laura, for our anniversary, you told me not to get you a gift. You said you just wanted two hours of my time to review the loan options for Hannah’s tuition.”
“And we found a great plan! Besides, you worry about money more than I do.” What the hell was he complaining about? Hadn’t they had sex after they signed up for the Sallie Mae loan with the three percent APR and deferred payback plan? She could swear they had.
“Laura. I repeat, I’m not asking for a divorce. I’m asking for a little time to myself. To think. To figure some shit out.” He looked annoyed, his expression one of disbelief that she hadn’t seen this coming a mile away.
Laura backed away abruptly and almost knocked over a kitchen stool. Doug grabbed it before it banged into a cabinet filled with ceramic mugs, most of them made by the girls over the years. Did he not care about drinking his coffee from the “#1 Dad” mug with the backward D anymore? Because Laura would be damned if he took anything but a suitcase of clothes with him if he left.
“Well, then you’re not coming with me to Beach Haven for the Fourth. I don’t want you around when we pack up the house. Clearly, you don’t care about family anyway.”
“That’s not true,” Doug said. “I’d like to be there. Your family is my family too. Don’t you think you’ll need me? Matthew will be on his phone the whole time. And Noah?”
Doug wasn’t wrong. But if he came, could she possibly pretend things were normal between them when they went with the whole gang to get saltwater taffy and picked up their to-go order from Uncle Will’s diner?
“I don’t know, Doug. And right now I have to make dinner. We can’t all just shirk our responsibilities, can we? By the way, we’re having salmon, even though it’s a Thursday. And I splurged on the organic.”
FANTASTIC FOURSOME
SOPHIE
Is Dairy King still open? Craving…
NOAH
The poor man’s Dairy Queen is open. Arlene Katz’s grandson is working there for the summer
SOPHIE
Why do u know so much about Mom’s canasta friends
NOAH
I’m a friendly guy
MATTHEW
DK was my first job…I remember getting in so much trouble for dropping a scoop and putting it back on the cone
NOAH
That was MINE
MATTHEW
Well u didn’t have to tell my boss
NOAH
I didn’t! He saw. It doesn’t seem to have hurt your career moneybags
SOPHIE
Yeah, seriously, M.
MATTHEW
Guess so. I miss my scooping days though. Laura—didn’t you work there too?
NOAH
She did and she didn’t charge me like you did, a-hole
SOPHIE
She charged me! WTF, Laura?
NOAH
Laura??? Does that mean im ur favorite?
SOPHIE
No chance. She felt bad for you because—ya know. Right, Laura?
SOPHIE
Laura, you dead?
NOAH
Um, Laura…we need to know who you like more
LAURA
Sorry. Been busy. See u guys tomorrow
3
Noah
“You know,” Mrs. Harrison said, stubbing out the remnants of her skinny cigarette into an amber ashtray etched with exotic cats, “they don’t call this place Loveladies for nothing.”
Noah looked up from his client’s iPhone, which he was in the midst of repairing, and caught a cloud of her smoke in his mouth. The sash of her silk robe was coming dangerously close to undone.
Rita Harrison, one of his tech-help regulars, had gotten logged out of her Hotmail account for the second time that week. After Noah entered three possible passwords, the phone had gone into lockdown mode for thirty minutes. Which meant he too was in lockdown. At least he charged by the hour. He could certainly use the money.
“What was that?” Noah asked, his eye catching the red lipstick stain on her coffee mug. He had refused a cup earlier, which had obviously displeased her, but he really didn’t want the caffeine. Noah’s plan for after he wrapped up with Mrs. Harrison’s phone was to return home, watch a little porn and take a good, long nap before his family descended en masse.
“I said, there’s a reason they call this town Loveladies. Do you know what it is?” Mrs. Harrison set her coffee mug on the desk and traced the lace trim of her robe with her index finger. Her nails were pink and polished in a shiny coat that resembled car paint. He focused on the bird print on her robe. There was something avian about Mrs. Harrison herself, beyond the talon-like nails. Was it her nose?
