Wife Goes On

Warning: Chapter One, introducing one of the four main characters, may make you blush...before it makes you laugh, then cry.

Did it ever occur to you that "wife" is a four letter word? The first time I cringed at the sound of it, I knew my marriage was over. But I refused to get a divorce. Maybe it was partly my fault, for devoting so much to my kids and to the asshole snoring next to me, that there was nothing left. But this was no starter marriage. Sure I was miserable, but I made a commitment, damnit.

The truth is, I was afraid to be alone. Then I heard my daughter swear she'd never get married and realized that sticking it out wouldn't win me Mother of the Year. If I wanted my kids to be happy, I would have to show them how. So I tore off those golden shackles – and found out I wasn't alone. I had joined a club that I didn't know existed. I never wanted to join this club, but now I'm glad I did. Everywhere, there are members who have paid their dues, know the secret handshake, and are reaping the benefits of real friendship.

Welcome to Club Divorce,
Diane Taylor


PART ONE: INITIATION
You Know You're in the Club when…you wish you had married for money.


CHAPTER -1- DIANE

Diane leaned back against the velvet settee her husband had proposed to her on fifteen years earlier. She would miss her grandma's antique furniture even more than this beautiful California Craftsman, sold on the verge of foreclosure. "I hate you," she said.

Steve pulled her white cotton briefs down her unshaven legs and over her feet then tossed them over his shoulder. "A deal's a deal."

The flat circle of a poker chip pressed against the straining denim of his pocket. "You would know," she said. He was an asshole, but it was nice to see him on his knees. Plus, she hadn't had sex in two years.

She dropped the legal documents and leaned back until all she could see was the chandelier. At least she wouldn't have to clean those crystals again, she thought, as his gray head lowered out of sight between her legs. She flinched. A jolt of electricity surged down her naked thigh and burned the sole of her left foot. Now her toes were cramping.

Her Volvo horn honked from the driveway. She opened her eyes and struggled up to peek out the living room window. The sky above the palm trees was nearly dark.

"The kids are fine," Steve said.

Diane hesitated, then reached for the collar of Steve's Hawaiian shirt and pulled him up on top of her. He was little heavier than she remembered, but he still had all the right parts. She yanked down his zipper. What harm was there in a quickie? Then his mouth was on hers and he was inside her and it felt so damn good. They had made love 1999 times in this house. Might as well go for a record before the new owner reset the counter to zero. According to those books at Barnes & Noble, she could be there for a very long time. Right now she had an itch the size of Disneyland, and who could resist the Happiest Place on Earth? A sheen of sweat broke out beneath her T-shirt. She felt the warm flush of blood on her chest.

The car horn faded behind the sound of her panting. This was the true meaning of wedded bliss. Steve knew exactly how she liked it: how hard, how fast, even how to make her ears ring.

No, that was her cell phone. Her hand automatically groped for it on the floor.

"Mother," fifteen-year-old Quinn whined from the car. "What's taking so long?"

"I'm…coming." Diane said.

What a woman will do to get her divorce papers signed.


Two minutes and a gulp of water from the kitchen faucet later, Diane dragged her potted palm out the front door of the Brentwood estate. She felt dizzy, but not from the sex. She couldn't believe this was really happening. That could not possibly be her shaky hand locking the double door for the last time. That was, however, her Volvo keychain with the kids' pictures and the Ralph's club card attached. Diane wiped her fingers on her sweatpants and pried the house key off. Perfect. Now she had a complete set of broken nails to go with her broken family.

In the moonlight, Diane could see past the Brentwood Realty sign posted in the overgrown lawn to where Quinn and her nine-year-old brother, Cody, were pinned between moving boxes in her filthy station wagon. Cody was engrossed in his Play Station, thank God. Quinn was painting on lip-gloss as if she had a date, which she sort of did, with a whole new life in a tiny rent-controlled apartment a few blocks away in Santa Monica.

The wrought-iron gate next door squealed open to the palm-lined drive. Diane jumped behind a square porch column as headlights swept past. The last thing she wanted was for her neighbor, Olivia, to come home from the neighborhood picnic – if you could call a catered barbecue a picnic - and spot Diane fleeing in the dark of night like a criminal. Diane felt awful when she had to let the gardener go last month, but to hell with the Homeowners Association. Diane was no longer a homeowner. So what if she organized the Independence Day party last year; this year she was celebrating her own. The T-shirt sticking to her back might as well be an orange jumpsuit stenciled with the number 15,000,001. Well, too bad. Diane might be a statistic now, but she was not one of them…those walking clichés, those bitter divorcees. Diane was not a quitter. She was a starter, that's all. Starting over. With a mountain of debt, two kids and a deadbeat ex who had fucked her in more ways than one.

Diane pushed a lock of faded bottle-brown hair behind her ear and prayed for her neighbor's gate to close. The kids were still waiting and now they were late "vacating the premises," but if Olivia saw Diane, she'd run out to say goodbye, and if that woman brought over another plate of those God-awful Crème de Menthe brownies, Diane might have to run her over. She was tired of hearing how a reliable maid could save a marriage. A reliable husband would be a better bet. Not that she was the betting kind; she left that to Asshole.

Diane knew what people like Olivia thought: that Diane was one of those brides who got married with their fingers crossed behind her back. But that wasn't true. Diane had not eloped, planned a Pre-nup, or shouted her vows while jumping out of an airplane. She had a proper church wedding - except for the usual obscenities exchanged between her mother and stepmother whenever they were on the same side of the Rockies. Which was why Diane truly meant it when she swore 'til death do we part.' Unfortunately, her husband refused to keel over on his own accord.

Her ex-husband, that is, now that the papers were signed and sealed in the envelope in her hand. Or did she have to suffer the name Kowalski until the LA County Court recorded her failure for posterity? She used to think it was too easy to get divorced - that couples got lazy and didn't try hard enough. When others bit the dust, she and Steve felt superior, as if sticking it out was the key to happiness. But now, after eighteen months of torture from fancy lawyers and forensic accountants, she knew differently. Happiness was the key to sticking it out.

The blare of the Volvo's horn woke Diane from her reverie. The family dog barked out of the front seat window. Lights flashed on between the pillars of the Colonial across the street. A face peeked out of the upstairs curtains above the jumbo American flag. She knew what they were thinking: the Kowalski's are at it again. At least the screaming was over. Diane waved to the kids to lay off the horn, but who was she to demand loyalty? If there were only her life to consider, she would have split a long time ago. And her stomach wouldn't be cramping like a permanent state of PMS.

Diane glanced at the plastic Cinderella watch she had borrowed from her daughter. She couldn't hide any longer. Time to move. She hurried to the custom-made oversized mailbox and pulled out her last pile of mail at this address. Aside from the bills she couldn't pay and the catalogs she could no longer order from, there was a padded envelope from London, the home of her old Business School roommate. A belated forty-second birthday present? Or had her friend read between the cheerful lines of Diane's emails? She pinched the bulge. Didn't feel like a self-help book, thank goodness; Diane had read them all. This felt long and round like a flashlight. Lewd images came to mind. Diane recoiled and dropped it. No. She felt guilty about what she did with Steve, that's all. Her old roommate was very proper. Diane picked the package up from the Welcome mat, hoping whatever it was hadn't broken. It was probably a tasteful English vase for her new home.

Diane pinned the mail under her arm. She shoved the legal envelope and the Happy Face house key into the mailbox. Then she picked up the potted palm and hurried across the front yard towards the car – just as the sprinklers turned on. Oh hell, she knew she had forgotten something. Besides her panties.

Diane shoved the black Lab to the back seat and wedged the plant into the front next to the cat crate. The poor thing was already meowing in terror of the bottle of wine Diane had stashed in there. Diane had swiped it from the otherwise fully stocked, climate-controlled wine cellar. It would be Two Buck Chuck from here on out, so what the hell. Let the new owner try to sue her over a bottle of Montrachet. Whoever it was, was lucky Diane didn't sell off the whole collection and replace it with fakes. The bright side of bankruptcy is that no one can touch you. Still, she didn't want to be a bad example for the kids. One criminal in the family was enough. Diane took the wine bottle out from beneath the cat and crammed it beneath the passenger seat. Scout barked again and nearly trampled Cody to get to the window. Diane couldn't pull the dog back from smothering her son. She tapped her daughter's sunburned shoulder. "I need your help, Quinn."

"Ouch. Okay, but don't get me wet." Quinn dropped her paperback of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and opened the back door. A sleeping bag rolled out onto the driveway.

"I meant help with the dog."

"Can't Daddy take Scout?" Quinn asked. She retrieved the sleeping bag and climbed back in. She tugged Scout's tail until the beast sat. "I want a purse poodle."

"You know Daddy's apartment doesn't take pets." Theirs didn't either, until she pawned her Cartier watch for the extra cleaning deposit. She snatched the Charles Chips bag from Cody's lap. She ate the last salty handful and tossed the empty bag on the floor mat, ignoring Quinn's wide-eyed reaction. Junk food and trash were the least of Diane's worries.

"Isn't Daddy coming with us?" Cody asked. Quinn sniggered.

Diane shook her head and toyed with her wedding rings. Asshole offered to have them cleaned just before the end, but she had wised up by then. He would have pawned them and claimed they were stolen to get the insurance money. She still couldn't take them off; her finger felt naked without them. "He said he'll pick you up for a barbecue tomorrow." Diane wrung the excess water from the hem of her sweatpants and climbed in the drivers' seat. She pulled the car door shut. "Seatbelts."

"Can you turn on KROQ?"

"I'm hungry," Cody wheezed.

Diane dug his inhaler out of her purse and tossed it back. "Give me a minute, you guys. It's been a long day."

"I am so sick of this whole divorce," Quinn said.

Diane met her daughter's eyes in the rear view mirror. She looked just like her father back when he had long hair and played the drums. Diane smiled at her, but Quinn was back to bickering with her brother as they pushed the dog back and forth between them. Diane sighed. She was sick of the divorce, too, and it was only the beginning.

Diane tilted the mirror back from where the palm frond had tweaked it. Who was that scrawny woman in the mirror? Diane's hair was a frizzy cloud and her eyes were ringed with circles as dark as Quinn's mascara. And how long had she had that smudge of dirt on her forehead? It looked like a "D" – like the scarlet letter, announcing her failure to the world. Diane was marked for life. A long, lonely life.

There was a rap on the passenger window. Diane caught a glimpse of her neighbor holding a plate and jammed her key in the ignition. She was in no mood for mint brownies, nor to make nice with a woman who had no idea what she was going through. The truth was, Diane had been lonely for a very long time.

But she wasn't alone. The kids quieted down when a moving truck lumbered up to the curb. She could feel their eyes on the back of her neck. Even the cat got quiet. Diane took one last look at their beautiful estate, the only home the kids had ever known. She had to be a good example. Act like this was an adventure. She lifted the collar of her T-shirt and rubbed the smudge off her forehead. Then she revved the engine. "Say: goodbye, house."

"Goodbye house!" The three of them waved.

There was no turning back now; she had to make the best of it. In LA, that only meant one thing. "Who wants In'N'Out burgers?"

The kids shouted, "I do! I do!"

Diane laughed at those two little words. She hadn't had an appetite in months, but now her stomach was growling. She cranked the radio to the classic rock station. Then she hit the gas and sped off into…she had no idea what.

Copyright 2008