And One Last Thing... Part 6

"I'm well aware of what the ancient Greeks were into!" I hissed. I pa.s.sed the angry-sounding device to the next woman and surrendered to an endless parade of things I could never take home. Flavored body gels, fuzzy handcuffs, some sort of rubber ring that looked like gummy candy from h.e.l.l. Mike would never want to use any of this stuff. For our first married Valentine's Day, I bought him a cute little gift basket stuffed with naughty dice, a blindfold, some chocolate body paint. He looked at the little dice inscribed with "nibble" and "nuzzle" and various body parts, then rolled his eyes and asked why we would want to bring gaming equipment into the bedroom.

Genie wrapped up the party by demonstrating how the Slip'N'Slide Vibrating Shower Glove pulsated the Luxuriant Evenings ma.s.sage lotion into our hands, she explained that this was a great way to wrap up a good round of "water play." I realized I'd never even had a round of water play. Citing the possibility of slipping or throwing his back out, Mike refused my repeated advances in the shower. Come to think of it, he'd also refused to have s.e.x in our kitchen, the hot tub in the fancy hotel suite we booked for our anniversary, the guest room in my parents' condo. The only place where he seemed interested in me was in our very own bed.

So when Genie started rubbing the lotion into my hand with the textured buzzing mitten, I burst into tears and ran out of the house. When I came home from Genie's without so much as edible panties, Mike considered this a confirmation of his skills. He smirked and snarked so much for the next few weeks that I went to Aphrodite's Palace over in Dalton just to reclaim some dignity. Scary as it was, I bought the less "intrusive" version of Zeus's Thunderbolt, a scepter-themed gold number called Cleopatra's Asp, and a pack of D batteries.

The good news was that having regular, albeit solo, o.r.g.a.s.ms made it much easier to fake them for Mike. Unfortunately, it also meant I knew what I was missing. It was a double-edged sword.

I faked it. A lot. I deserved an Oscar for the performances I put on. Meryl Streep had nothing on my a.s.s. I didn't know if Mike bought into the theory that I suddenly, without special effort on his part, pushed through my frigidity. I think he was content not to be bothered. I gave the appearance of being satisfied and that meant he didn't have to try harder.

The thing that really chaps my a.s.s is that now that I'd read the e-mails, I knew that Mike was at least willing to try the new and different with Beebee. On the copy machine. On the couch in the office. In cheap motels. Why could he break his precious s.e.x rules for Beebee and not me? Because I was his wife?

Because he couldn't think of me that way? Or was I really that bad in bed? I tried to respond in ways that made me feel good, but whenever I asked Mike what he wanted me to do, he'd just say, "That's fine." It felt like I was being criticized for not knowing what I was doing, but refused adequate instruction. It was like high school algebra.

Now he had to search for his own suits. And I was alone.

What would I do now? What could I do? I had no work experience. I wasn't trained for much besides journalism. And at this point, my skills were a little rusty. Besides, newspaper editors probably preferred writing about me than hiring me to write for them. The idea that I might not be able to support myself was depressing and terrifying. I'd never had to worry about money before. And the idea of going to my parents to ask for help made my stomach turn. It was bad enough driving my mother's car.

I leaned back, fluttering my feet through the cool water. At least this way I could figure out what I wanted, what could make me happy, without worrying how it would affect everybody else in my life.

Behind me, I heard the door to my neighbor's cabin open and Wolverine stepped out. (I refused to call him Lefty, even in my head.) Beer bottle in hand, he tipped his face up to watch bright blue and green light from the fireworks splas.h.i.+ng across the sky. It took him a few minutes to realize I was there. He nodded, not a friendly gesture, really, just acknowledgment of my presence. I nodded back, then turned my face back to the light show.

Independence. Making the choice to be alone. I only hoped it didn't make me into a vaguely threatening, brooding psycho.

11 * Nude Neighborhood Watch.

A few days later, I stood at the end of that same dock, considering my mother's cautionary tale about Natalie Wood.

I didn't usually swim after dark, or for that matter, in water not surrounded by concrete. But swimming the lake had been a tradition since we were kids. Also, it was mid-July, the humidity level was somewhere around "sauna," and I had a window air-conditioning unit from 1978.

I sighed. Screw it. I wasn't drunk. Christopher Walken was nowhere in sight. I would be fine.

I ran off the end of the dock and slid into the black water headfirst. I sliced the mirror-smooth water soundlessly, with sure strokes. I'd always been a strong swimmer. Despite the fact that Emmett was three years older, I always beat him in our races from the dock. I propelled forward, the water streaming over my skin. My body remembered the distance from the dock to the buoy that marked the boat channel. My hand stretched out and touched the familiar rusted metal. The buoy bell, our traditional victory signal, echoed off the sh.o.r.e.

I laughed and kicked off the buoy, stroking back toward the sh.o.r.e. The night was clear, sending little fire-bursts of reflected stars off the surface of the water. The last time I'd swum here at night was about three years before. I was still trying to improve our s.e.x life and got Mike up to the cabin for a weekend alone. It was Indian summer and still warm. The neighbors had all abandoned their cabins for the season on Labor Day. I thought it would be romantic and spontaneous to swim under the stars.

Of course, when Mike told his friends the story later, I was the one who had to be persuaded to skinny-dip. I was the one who whined about the water being cold. I was the one who objected to having s.e.x on the dock because of the possibility of splinters. I remembered walking onto the Dixons' back deck at a barbecue the next weekend and overhearing Mike bragging to his buddies, "She couldn't get enough. I had to do some fasttalking to get Lacey out there, but once I got her in the water, she was begging for it."

I practically dropped the tray of drinks in Mike's lap. I slunk back into the house until the blush drained out of my cheeks. I was the one who had to sweet-talk Mike out of those stupid plaid swim trunks. I was the one had to beg and plead for him to do anything different, but he was taking credit for it.

I gritted my teeth at the memory, at the way Mike's friends smirked at me for weeks afterward. I stripped off my suit and slung it toward the dock. "Screw you, Mike."

I could do this. I could be unpredictable and bold. I could be naked outside. I was my own woman, my own completely nude woman. I floated on my back, enjoying the way my bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s puckered against the soft night air. I raised my hand, blocking out the full moon. I watched the water sluice down my skin. I looked down at the contours and curves of my body, marble white against the moonlight. I'd always had an above-average figure. That was one thing Mike couldn't blame his wandering for, my letting myself go.

I wasn't big on mirror time, but Mama had instilled in me a healthy esteem for my looks and the time and attention it took to maintain them. I had slim lines, good cheekbones, and, if Gammy Muldoon's complexion was any indicator, skin that would remain soft and unlined until I was well into my seventies. I dutifully went to my stylist for a trim and an eyebrow wax every three weeks whether I thought I needed it or not. I slathered on the Oil of Olay before bedtime. The results spoke for themselves. I knew the way Mike's friends and clients looked at me. And I'd always a.s.sumed that was part of my job, to be one half of the smiling all-American blond couple. How was I supposed to know that Mike found that boring?

If I wanted to, I didn't doubt that I could find another man. Heck, I'd had several offers, also from Mike's friends and clients - even an uncle of Mike's that Wynnie considered a saint - but since I'd a.s.sumed that my "unspoken agreement" with Mike included not sleeping with other people, I declined. The question was whether I wanted another man. They were such a sackload of trouble, and really, what had I gotten for it? Psychological issues that would require years of therapy and/or vodka-related self-medication.

I backstroked and slid under the surface, swimming underwater until I reached the dock. My breath stretched my lungs, a comfortable cus.h.i.+on against drowning prolonged by years of yoga cla.s.ses. I plunged to the bottom, remembering the game Emmett and I used to play, sitting on the bottom of the lake and trying to talk underwater, relaying secret messages. Mostly they came out as "burbleburbleburble."

I was enjoying the quiet, muted world below when a pair escaped mental patients and hockey mask-wearing serial killers, I struck out blind at my attacker, kicking and flailing. He grunted behind me as I glanced my foot off of his chest, grabbing my arms to keep me from swinging back at him. I broke the surface, spluttering and curling my fingers into claws and swinging at nothing. I couldn't see! A bubble of panic rising in my chest, I sank again, fighting against the instinct to draw water into my lungs.

Terror stretched those moments into an eternity, giving me time to berate myself. How could I have been so stupid? Swimming alone at night in a secluded area? Why didn't I just send up a "naked unchaperoned woman" flare for every s.e.x predator in the county? Hadn't I been through enough? Hadn't my dignity already been smacked all to h.e.l.l? Now I was going to die in some sort of horrible John Carpenter-esque slaughter. The headlines would read "Divorcees Mistaken for Co-ed by h.o.r.n.y Psychopath." My father would probably skip my funeral for the annual Phi Rho CM Horseshoe Tournament. Mike would get widower's sympathy and get everything I owned since I hadn't changed my will yet.

I would not allow that to happen.

Grunting, I pushed up from the squishy mud bottom with all the strength in my legs. I was not going to die this way. I would survive. I would make it to the cabin and call 911. Okay, it was highly likely I was going to die this way because I could not fight off a full-grown man in a naked underwater wrestling match. But I was going to at least put up a fight. As I rocketed up toward the surface, my head b.u.mped against my attacker's chin. I gave in to my instinct to curse and swallowed a mouthful of water. As I broke through to air, I swung at where I thought the guy's eyes were, but I hit his forehead instead.

"Ow!" Wolverine yelled. "Stop! Stop struggling and just let me help you!"

"Help me?!" I wheezed, coughing up water as he wrapped an arm around my chest and towed me toward the dock. "You're drowning me. What is wrong with you?"

My neighbor clapped a hand on the wood stairs and anch.o.r.ed us there. He was not dressed for a night swim, wearing jeans and an old navy blue T-s.h.i.+rt. I could feel his sneakers b.u.mping against my legs as he treaded water. "Me? What's wrong with you? What are you doing out here?"

"Swimming! Now would you mind getting your hands off me?" I said, slapping at the protective arm slung around my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He winced and let go, letting me slip under the water again. I considered staying there for a moment, just to prevent the conversation that would follow. But ultimately I bobbed up and got my own grip on the staircase.

"What are you doing swimming at two a.m.?" he grunted, hauling himself out of the water. His jeans dragged low on his hips under the soggy weight of the denim. He plopped down on the dock and slicked his hair out of his face.

I stayed in the water for the sake of cover, blus.h.i.+ng as I tried to explain. "Well, I didn't count on you jumping in fully clothed and trying to drown me."

"I wasn't trying to drown you. I was trying to stop you!"

"Stop me from what?"

"From killing yourself!" he shouted.

"I'm not trying to kill myself! I'm just... It was too hot to sleep." I finished lamely.

"Well, of all the stupid -" He grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. "Swimming alone at night? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"

"My neighbor could jump in and try to kill me?" I snarked.

"Look, I know you're going through some emotionally traumatic thing right now, but I don't have time for this s.h.i.+t," he snarled. "I'm not going to be the guy who swoops in and saves you from yourself. I don't want your Bundt cake or your lasagna or whatever you used to make for your husband that he never appreciated. I won't be the guy who helps you get your groove back or whatever you think I'm going to do to nurse you back to health before releasing you into the wild. I don't want to spend time with you. I don't want to get to know you better. I am not interested in you. So the next time you're feeling like doing something like this - don't. All right?"

Cursing under his breath, Mr. Monroe turned on his heel and stalked up the dock. My natural tendency when faced with this sort of open hostility - well, I don't know what that would be because I'd never faced this sort of open hostility. Nevertheless, I launched myself up the ladder and stomped after him. The limp slowed him down, which meant I was able to easily overtake him.

"Hey! Hey!" I yelled, slapping at the back of his shoulder. Carried by my own p.i.s.sed-off momentum, I narrowly avoided cras.h.i.+ng into him when he stopped.

"I don't know who the h.e.l.l you think you are or where you got such a d.a.m.n high opinion of yourself, Mr. Aloof Brooding Loner Man. But maybe you should, just for a moment, consider the fact that I'm not interested in you. I didn't come up here trolling for a rebound man. I didn't come up here looking for anything but a place to hide. I am in exile, you a.s.s. I was humiliated by a husband who couldn't keep his d.i.c.k in his pants and then I overreacted, just a little bit, in an extremely public way." Monroe's lips twitched, even if his eyes were still glaring with unexpressed urges to throttle me. "I have no interest in replacing one untrustworthy male appendage for another. In fact, if I had known there was a p.e.n.i.s within a five-mile radius of this cabin, I wouldn't have come up here. But I did and now you're just going to have to live with it. But when you go to sleep tonight, comfort yourself in the absolute certainty that I have no interest in you, or the emotional baggage you're obviously toting around with you... and I'm still naked, aren't I?"

Monroe looked down and nodded, the barest hint of a smile quirking his lips.

"s.h.i.+t." I muttered. I didn't have so much as a towel to cover myself with, so I did my own heel turn and stalked up to the cabin. I could only hope my a.s.s wasn't jiggling, which really would have capped the humiliation of the evening.

"Just so we're clear, we have established that we're not interested in each other, right?" he called after me. I could hear the barely contained laughter tightening his voice.

"Oh, f.u.c.k off!" I yelled, not bothering to look back at him.

The good news was that my being angry at Monroe gave me a break from being angry at Mike. It was like my ears had been ringing for weeks and suddenly it had stopped. I showered, using well water to wash lake water out of my hair, which had never made sense to me. I shampooed in anger, which is never smart as you tend to go through about half a bottle of Paul Mitch.e.l.l before you realize what you're doing. I dragged on some pajamas and pulled out my laptop bag.

I sighed, staring at the blank Word doc.u.ment. Samantha had asked me to come up with some thoughts on the breakdown of my marriage to Mike. She said it would help her come up with the best plan of attack for divorce court. But I sat there, mocked by the blinking cursor, and couldn't come up with anything to say. After what happened with the newsletter, I was almost afraid to write anything. Where to start? When did my marriage start to decline?

If I was honest with myself, I typed, I would say my marriage probably started to decline before it started. About three days before we got married, I woke up in a cold sweat. I marched into my parents' room and was about to tell them I couldn't marry Mike. We weren't right for each other. I wasn't ready to get married yet. There were too many things I still wanted to do. I opened my mouth and got as far as "I can't" when I saw my father's face. Whatever I was about to say, he didn't want to hear. As usual, he only wanted to hear "happy thoughts" from his youngest child. So I bit my lip. I said, "I can't find my address book for thank-you notes. Have you seen it?" And I backed out of the room with a lead weight in my stomach.

The morning of our wedding, I woke up and vomited. And then vomited again. And part of me hoped that I was pregnant so I would have a good reason for going through with the wedding.

It turned out to be nerves.

I wrote about the pressure I felt from our families to stay with Mike, about my own feelings of obligation to Mike after being with him for so long. I wrote about losing the job opportunity at the newspaper, the shame I felt in letting myself get talked out of working, how useless I felt staying home, and how lost I was with no expectation of how I would spend every day. I wrote about how I'd networked and entertained and worked parttime in Mike's office during tax season. And yes, how I wrote his monthly newsletter.

It felt like automatic writing, like some filter-impaired spirit had taken over my typing fingers. I wrote about the first time I realized that Mike's dad was a jacka.s.s and it was likely that Mike was going to turn out just like him. About getting conception advice from eighty-year-old Margaret Mason, a fellow church member who'd decided that "enough was enough" and it was time for us to have a baby. I wrote until my fingers hurt and the s.p.a.ce between my shoulder blades began to ache. My eyes were grainy and tired. I felt hollowed out. Nothing. No anger, no anxiety. Just empty and tired. I'd lost track of time... and had written almost fifteen pages. And I hadn't even gotten to the "Mike's a cheating b.a.s.t.a.r.d" period of our marriage.

I ran a hand over my face and saved my doc.u.ment. I wasn't sure how useful it would be to Samantha, but writing it made me feel... lighter. It was easier to move, like my joints had been unlocked. I stood, stretched high, and yawned. I looked at the little double bed in the "master bedroom" with the old purple patchwork quilt. It actually looked inviting. I stretched across the top of the blankets, keeping carefully to my usual side of the bed, the left, before I realized that I didn't have to share. If I wanted to sleep lengthwise, I could. Experimentally, I slid my feet onto the right side, stretching in a long line, enjoying the luxury of unlimited legroom. I sighed, switched off the little bedside lamp, and wondered what I would write the next day.

I woke up to a pitch-black room. I panicked for a moment, unsure of where I was or whose bed I was in. It was still an adjustment to sleep alone, even though Mike wasn't exactly an exciting presence in the bedroom, when he was there. And it was a comfort to have his warm weight balancing the mattress. Once you get used to that, trying to sleep alone feels like you've forgotten something. You lie there and wonder whether you left the front door unlocked or the stove on and then you realize, oh, there's supposed to be another person in my bed.

I was starving. I hadn't eaten anything during the literary unburdening of my soul. I foraged in the fridge and was overwhelmed with my choices. I never ate midnight snacks. Since, as my mother-in-law put it, "Mike likes his girls thin," I was pretty careful about what I ate. And despite the fact that I loved to cook a variety of dishes, so much of my meal planning and shopping revolved around Mike's finicky palate - no spices, no fish, no nightshade vegetables. The rare exceptions were when we entertained people who, say, might like seasonings other than salt and pepper. Mike suffered through those meals, and after our guests left, groaned for the rest of the night as if I'd poisoned him.

Even now, the contents of my pantry reflected Mike's tastes. White bread, American cheese, deli-sliced roast turkey. (Because smoked turkey was too exotic.) I must have shopped on automatic pilot.

So what did I want? It was so strange not to have to take anyone else's feelings into consideration. If I felt like eating pot stickers and waffles for dinner, I could. If I felt like eating pot stickers and waffles for dinner every night for the next two weeks, I could.

So what did people eat at this hour of the morning?

I finally settled for the makings of a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and a can of c.o.ke. I didn't bother turning on the porch light as it would only attract mosquitoes... and the attention of my neighbor, who was awake and sitting at his computer near his living room window. He seemed to be smiling at the screen. The tilt of his lips, the arch of white teeth, lit up his whole face. He was relaxed, happy, an entirely different person from the a.s.s who pulled me out of the lake. It would have been nice to spend time with -...

Wait, I disliked this man, intensely. "Enjoy barelylegalfarmgirls.com, you jerk," I muttered.

He stretched his long, lean arms over his head, craning his neck toward the window. He did a double take when he saw me watching him. His relaxed expression all but evaporated and with an abrupt flick of his wrist, he shut his blinds.

a.s.shole.

I took an overly aggressive bite of sandwich, feeling a surge of guilt at being so tense in the face of such serenity. This place was my sanctuary. I had just as much right to be there as Monroe did. I would not let him take this from me. I forced the snark to drain from my body so I could enjoy it. The sky was perfectly clear and so close to dawn that it was starless. I could hear the water gently b.u.mping Gammy's rowboat against the dock. Somewhere in the weeds, a bullfrog tried to drown out the crickets. Across the cove, a devoted fisherman was rowing along the sh.o.r.e, setting gig lines, long, floating strings of hooks that you set before dawn, hoping to return for an economy-size catch. It was so peaceful. Opening my drink seemed to make an obscene amount of noise.

I yawned. The hermit lifestyle was messing with my internal clock. I doubted that post-midnight snacks involving grilled fats and soda would do much for my waistline. If I wanted to do my trainer, the Carb n.a.z.i, proud, I would put on my running shoes and go for a jog at daybreak. But the first thing I wanted to do was get back on my laptop and start writing about Mike's mother's ability to sense every single time we were naked and call to "see what we were up to." It was like she had a chip implanted in him somewhere.

Revived by bubbly caffeine, I worked until the sun came up, describing how I felt when Mike first hired Beebee and how all the women in town seemed to have a collective fit. I looked out the window and saw that Monroe's lights were off. Apparently he'd turned in for the morning. Maybe he was some sort of nocturnal creature, only capable of annoying me after dark.

I tapped at the keys to bring up what I'd written about the morning I'd received Beebee's flowers. I had my own neuroses to deal with. I didn't have time for his.

12 * Shakespeare Territory.

Come on, loser, out of bed."

Lifting my drool-stained face from the pillow, I squinted up at my brother, who was smirking down at me and waving a pint of rocky road under my nose. I winced when Emmett pulled up the shades, flooding the room with late afternoon light.

"Go away, I was up at the b.u.t.t crack of dawn," I moaned, pulling the quilt over my head. "Besides, I'm in hiding."

"Well, you're doing a lousy job, love lump," Emmett chided from the other side of the bed. I felt him nudging my ribs through the quilts. "It took me all of two guesses to get your location out of Mama."

"What was your other guess?" I asked, my voice m.u.f.fled by the blankets.

"That creepy old sanitarium where we used to visit Great-Auntie Myrtle."

Emmett shook my covered shoulders. "Get up or I'll eat all this ice cream myself and you will be responsible for the resulting cellulite on my thighs."

I whipped the covers off my head as he continued to poke at me. "Oh, you don't have any cellulite, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You're the only one in the family without it."

Emmett shrank back at the sight of my horrific bedhead and pillow creases. "Gah! Quick, take the ice cream before your eyes turn me to stone."

I glared up at him. Emmett was basically a male version of me. The same dimples, our father's blue eyes, the same topheavy, bowed lips. Our hair was a matching shade of b.u.t.tery blond, which Emmett insisted he dyed to look like mine. I thought he was trying to be nice until I caught him attempting to cut a sample swatch of my hair to take to his colorist.

Emmett has boundary issues.

My brother ran The Auctionarium, a brick-and-mortar business for people who didn't know how to use eBay, Amazon, or basically any online site that sold used items. He took in weird family heirlooms, antiques, and garage sale fodder and sold them online for a handsome profit. From looking at him, you couldn't tell he was a computer geek-slash-the-world's-foremost-authority-on-carnival-gla.s.s. Unless he was crawling around in someone's bas.e.m.e.nt or barn searching for valuables, he favored a sort of Cape Cod aesthetic. Lots of madras and plaid. It looked like Calvin Klein threw up in his closet.

Imagine growing up with a brother who knew how to dress better than you did. It's humiliating.

"Come on, Lace, out of bed," he said, smacking me repeatedly with a pillow. "This is starting to look like something out of Valley of the Dolls. And not in the fun way."

"I'm coming, but only for the ice cream." I grumbled, s.n.a.t.c.hing the container from his hand and wrapping the quilt around my shoulders. Emmett, who'd always had a flair for the dramatic, took the tail end of the quilt and carried it like a royal train.

"What time is it?" I asked, using the spoon he ceremoniously presented to dig into the melty chocolate.

"Around four," Emmett said. "Why were you up at the b.u.t.t crack of dawn?"

"Writing," I said. "The sad story of my life. My lawyer wants my thoughts on how exactly my marriage went to c.r.a.p."

"Well, it started when you married a pompous, pretentious, prematurely old man," he snorted.

Emmett loved alliteration, but he had never liked Mike. When Mike and I started dating, I thought it was normal for Emmett to treat Mike like an annoying younger brother. And after a few years, I blamed the distance between them on Mike's latent h.o.m.ophobia. But now I had to admit that Emmett's "a.s.shat radar" was just more acutely tuned than my own.

"Hey, where have you been, Em?" I demanded, finally awake enough to be indignant. "My life has come cras.h.i.+ng down around my ears and you can't drag yourself home?"

"Sweetie, I'm sorry, the resort was all about relaxation and binge drinking. The staff didn't allow TVs, internet access, or newspapers ... or Crocs. It was fantastic. I had no idea what was happening until we landed in Florida and I saw you featured on the 'news of the weird' portion of Inside Edition. Not your best picture, by the way."

I glared at him.

"Which is, clearly, not the point. It doesn't matter, because Emmett's here now to make it all better." He dragged me into the cabin's tiny kitchen, where he proudly displayed the contents of a festive picnic hamper - several bottles of vodka, tequila, rum, and mixers in a rainbow of fruit flavors, lemons, limes, a five-pound bag of mini Hershey bars and bulk-sized box of Hostess CupCakes.