Window Dressing

“Ma,” he said before I could tell him how happy I was that he called, “you gotta stop sending all the cookies. One of my roommates saw a roach last night.”

“You’re not eating my cookies?” I asked with a modicum of mommy devastation.

“Ma—come on. Who could keep up? We get a package like every three days.”

Perhaps I’d gone a little overboard, I thought as I eyed the two batches of oatmeal cookies cooling on the kitchen counter. “Okay,” I vowed, “no more cookies. So, how are things going?”

“Things are cool, Ma. Gotta go, though. Class. See ya.”

“But—”

But he was gone.

I packed the cookies up and took them next door to Moira’s.

“Listen, hon, I know you’ve got time on your hands,” she said as she chewed on her fifth cookie, “but you can’t bring stuff like this over here. I have to be able to get into my new red dress for that cocktail party next month. CPAs and their wives. Big Yawn. I plan on being the most exciting aspect of the event and these cookies aren’t helping.”

That was the night I started watching the shopping channels on TV. Looking forward to finding out what the deal of the day was at midnight was about all the excitement I was getting. One night I found myself reaching for the phone while the on-air personality rhapsodized about a kitchen tool that would replace just about every other implement in the house—and all for $19.95. I snatched my hand back and vowed right then and there that there were going to be some changes made.

With butterflies in my stomach, the next day I called the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee campus, ordered a catalogue of courses, and made an appointment to speak with a counselor in the department of continuing education.

Two days later, my heart did one of those funny little stalls when I opened the mailbox to find the catalogue had arrived. Oddly, I was not comforted that the postal rules hadn’t changed since I was a twelve. Good things, like free makeup samples, took forever to arrive. Things that you’d just as soon not see, like report cards—and catalogues that were going to force you to start thinking about where your life was going—showed up in no time at all.

I took the catalogue to the breakfast nook, poured myself a cup of coffee, and started to page through it. After a half-hour I was wishing I’d made decaf. I felt lost and nervous as a high school freshman trying to find her locker.

I’d always intended to finish college someday. I’d even taken a college course here and there over the years. I’d sit in lectures thinking about the Halloween costume I could be sewing or the party I could be planning or the soccer game I was missing or the committee I could be chairing. Pretty soon I’d drop out, vowing to go back again when Gordy got older. Well, now Gordy was older and it was going to be different. It had to be. When Gordy graduated from college, maintenance from Roger would stop and I’d have to buy him out of the house if I wanted to stay on Seagull Lane. Which I did. I intended for my grandchildren to someday visit me in my little cottage.

Before I’d dropped out of college to marry Roger, I’d planned to major in elementary education. The prospect of being a teacher no longer interested me, I knew that much. But I had no idea what else I wanted to do.

Hoping to brainstorm, I called Moira but Stan said she’d gone shopping so I switched on the tube, found an old Bette Davis movie and lost myself in how Paul Henreid looked when he held two cigarettes in his mouth, lit them, and handed one to Bette. It wasn’t a bad way to spend an evening. Afterwards, I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on, horrors of horrors, soft white bread. Since I no longer had to set a good example for my son, cheap white bread had become my new guilty pleasure. I dug in the refrigerator and came out with a can of chocolate syrup. I poured some into a big glass of milk and stirred. Then I tucked the UW catalogue under my arm, picked up the sandwich and milk and took everything up to bed with me. Maybe if I slept with the catalogue under my pillow, I’d dream about what I wanted to be when I grew up.

The phone woke me up the next morning. I sat up and grabbed it on the first ring. The college catalogue, still open in the vicinity of my lap, slid to the floor with a thump.

“Hello?” I croaked as I squinted against the sun filtering through the semisheer curtains in my bedroom window.

“Mrs. Campbell? This is Sondra Hawk from Priority Properties. I’d like to set up an appointment to check out the house. Today if possible. What time would be convenient?”

“Check out the house?” I asked dumbly as I pushed hair out of my face and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Ten a.m. I never slept this late. Ever. I swear. The shame of it made my body go hot all over. I sat up straighter in bed and tried for a more cheerful, wakeful tone. “You want to check out the house?”

“Yes,” Sondra said then gave a little laugh. “You know, get acquainted with its idiosyncrasies.”

“Why would you want to do that?” I asked as I got out of bed. That way if Sondra, whose voice sounded like she was one of those alarmingly well put together women who knew how to accessorize, asked me if I’d still been in bed I could honestly answer no.

But, of course, she didn’t ask.

“We here at Priority Properties,” she explained, “pride ourselves in getting to know a house before we list it. The first step—”

I frowned. “Wait a minute—did you say list?”

“Yes—list.”

“Excuse me, but you seem to be under the false impression that I’m selling my house.”

Sondra didn’t miss a beat. “I have the signed agreement right here in front of me.”

I shook my head. “No—that’s not possible.”

There was a slight pause before she said, “Mrs. Campbell, your husband signed the agreement.”

“Nonsense,” I insisted, knowing this must be a mistake. “I don’t even have a husband. I have an ex-husband,” I conceded. “But he no longer lives here. I live here.”

“But it’s his name on the deed, Mrs. Campbell. It’s his house. And he’s putting it up for sale.”

I told Sondra I’d get back to her and hung up the phone. I started to punch in the number for Weidermeir, Junket and Sloan Associates Engineering but thought better of it. This was something I had to do in person. I showered in record time, pulled on a white T-shirt and an ankle-length, army-green drawstring skirt that was only slightly wrinkled and ran a brush through my wet hair. My dark blond hair is chin length, parted in the middle and tends to be stick straight if I don’t blow dry it. But this was no time to worry about volume. My adrenaline was shooting into high gear. I needed to confront Roger while the anger was still pumping through my veins. I shoved my feet into some brown leather clogs, grabbed my purse, and headed for the garage.

Southeastern Wisconsin likes to keep you guessing about the weather. October had arrived and the leaves on the trees were gold and crimson but the day was as steamy as an August heat wave. I was practically to Roger’s office before the air conditioner in my aging car had any effect on the sweat factor under my T-shirt. I arrived downtown looking as haggard and bewildered as I felt.

The attendant at the underground parking facility wouldn’t let me in. No spaces reserved for ex-wives, apparently. I managed to snag a parking spot on the street five blocks away. Which meant, of course, that I was noticeably damp by the time I reached Roger’s building. The ride up in the elevator made me feel queasy and I wished I’d eaten something before leaving home.

The receptionist didn’t have a clue who I was and looked dubious when I told her my name. She was as crisp and unwrinkled in her tightly tailored taupe suit as I was sweaty and disheveled. I noticed her giving me the once over while she buzzed Roger’s office, making me wish I’d spent some time with a blow dryer and an iron, after all.

“He’s with clients,” the receptionist said as she hung up the phone. “If you’d care to wait—” She waved her hand toward the sumptuous waiting area. But I wasn’t interested in being awed by the Mies van der Rohe knock-off chairs or in paging through this month’s copy of Structural Engineering.

“I really don’t care to wait, thank you. I’ll just go on back.”

She was on her feet and out from behind her desk before I could open the door to the inner sanctum.

“Of course,” she said smoothly, like she was used to managing uncooperative people. “Please come with me.”

I followed her down the plushly carpeted hallway to a small room that wasn’t a conference room, nor was it an office. Perhaps it was the place they led all irate ex-wives to. The Ex Waiting Room. How modern. How sophisticated. How condescending.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee?”

Coffee? I was boiling inside and out. “No, thanks,” I muttered.

“As you wish,” she said, then left.

“As you wish,” I singsonged to myself as I flounced around the room. Her poise was pissing me off almost as much as that immaculate taupe suit she was wearing. I noticed the furniture in the Ex Waiting Room didn’t even bother to be knock-offs of anything. No doubt I’d have gotten my coffee in a plastic cup.

So not only was I getting my house sold from under me, I was now labeled second class at Weidermeir, Junket and Sloan.

Which, of course, was what I was. But having my nose rubbed in it didn’t make me happy. Not that I would ever want Roger back. In fact, every time I saw him I believed just a little bit more in divorce.

I was pacing and mentally counting up Roger’s deficits in the husband department when the door opened and he walked in.

He was still handsome and I suppose you could say he looked intimidating standing there in a suit that probably cost more than the contents of my entire closet and a shirt that was custom made. On the other hand, I knew he got gas from cucumbers and that he had the hair on his back professionally waxed. These things saved me from being intimidated by cashmere or thread counts.

“What is this about, Lauren?” he asked impatiently.

I crossed my arms. “What do you think it’s about, Roger?”

He sighed again. “I take it Sondra called you. She wasn’t supposed to do that. Not until I’d had a chance to warn you.”

“Warn me? About what?”

“Lauren,” he said with that blandly condescending way I’d come to hate when we were still married, “try to focus. I meant warn you about Sondra listing the house, of course. With winter coming, now is the best time to put it on the market. Plus, with interest rates—”

I only partly listened while Roger quoted a raft of statistics.

“Roger,” I finally interrupted, “why does the house have to be put up for sale at all?”

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling before turning back to me. “Lauren, that was the agreement,” he said slowly, like he was explaining something to a child. “I pay you maintenance, child support and pick up the tab for the house until Gordon goes to college. At which time, the house reverts back to me, the maintenance ends and the child support goes into a trust to pay for Gordon’s education and other expenses.”

I stared at him for a moment. Could this be right? I shook my head. “The agreement was until he finished college, Roger. Which means I’ve got four more years until—”

He gave a derisive chuckle. “Delusional, as usual,” he said. “You’ve always lived in your own little dream world, Lauren.”

I gasped. “Me? Are you kidding?” I demanded. “Dream world? I’ve been a single mother for ten years, Roger. I was the one who stayed, remember? I’m the responsible one, while you—”

“Now wait just a minute! If you were really responsible, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. You’d have a career in place and you’d be able to buy the house yourself if you wanted to stay there so badly.”

“My career,” I said tightly, “was raising our son.”

“Fine. But now that’s over.”

“Over?” Okay, maybe I knew that. And maybe I knew that this day was eventually coming. But it made no sense to me that eventually had suddenly become now.

“That house is Gordy’s home, too,” I pointed out. “What do you expect him to do during the holidays? Summers?”

Roger shrugged. “He’ll do what most children of divorced parents do. He’ll spend part of the time at my condo and part of the time at your apartment.”

The word apartment still had the power to make me cringe inside—and not only because, without a job, I couldn’t possibly afford one. The reason I’d fought to stay on at Seagull Lane, fought to bring my son up in exactly the manner he would have been raised had his parents not been divorced, was because he wasn’t going to have my childhood. Not if I could help it.

Roger looked at his watch. “Look, I’ve got to get back to my meeting. This has taken up too much of my time already. I’m sorry the Realtor’s call shook you up, but I think if you check with your lawyer, you’ll see that I’m well within my rights. So don’t try to make me out to be the bad guy, Lauren. I’ve been patient with you long enough.”

After Roger left, I slumped into a chair, fished my cell phone out of my purse and called my lawyer’s office. She was with a client so I asked for her voice mail and left her a message detailing precisely what I needed to know. Namely, was I about to become homeless?

On my way out, I managed to give the receptionist a bright smile and wish her a good day but I was glad once I was back on the street and I didn’t have to hide how scared I was.

I walked without purpose, trying to remember the details of the divorce agreement. Could I have actually gotten wrong something as important as this—a roof over our heads? Bread on the table? Was it possible that my life was about to change even more than I thought it would? Was I going to go from an empty nest to no nest at all?

I started to feel sick. I wasn’t sure if it was lack of food or the humidity or the fear, but when I passed a restaurant, I decided to go in. I didn’t even notice the name of the place. The air conditioner was pumping out cool air and there was food to be had. That was enough for me.

The waitress showed me to a booth and I ordered iced tea. When she left, I opened the menu and immediately honed in on the dessert section. Chocolate Suicide. Yeah, I could use a little suicide, especially if it was sweet. But then I remembered the receptionist’s tight, taupe skirt. When the waitress came back, I ordered the salad of field greens with grilled chicken.

When it came, it was huge and it occurred to me that maybe I should eat half and take the rest home for dinner. I mean, maybe I was going to have to start doing that kind of stuff. Maybe I was going to have to start doling out my food so a loaf of bread would last me a week and a jar of peanut butter would last me a month. I’d have to start putting milk in my coffee instead of more expensive flavored non-dairy creamers. Unless, of course, I ended up living under a viaduct in a discarded washing machine carton where I’d only have refrigeration from October to May.

I nibbled while I thought of the humilities I might have to suffer, but as soon as the food hit my stomach I started to feel stronger.

I was right about this and Roger was wrong. I had four more years to get my act together. Not that I was admitting that I’d been irresponsible. You can’t be irresponsible and serve as PTA president, block watch captain and room mother. You can’t be irresponsible if you tucked your child in every night and made him breakfast every morning.

I stabbed a hunk of something green and ruffly and shoved it into my mouth. I was getting angry again. After all, marriage was a contract. A bargain between two people. Both Roger and I had been up-front before we’d gotten married about what we wanted and expected. I had kept my end of the bargain. Roger was the irresponsible one who hadn’t. It was hard to believe that in the beginning we’d both wanted the same thing.

I met Roger the summer before my junior year of college. I was working at a day-care center and I’d taken a group of seven and eight year olds on a field trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum, perched on the edge of Lake Michigan. We’d brought bag lunches and eaten them on the lawn near some huge, metal sculptures. Afterwards, I’d passed out little disposable cameras, given the kids a quick lesson and told them to get snap happy. It was such a joy to watch them decide what they wanted to shoot. I was grinning ear to ear when Roger came up to me and told me that he’d never seen anything as beautiful as how I was with those children. I was speechless. I mean, here was this terrific-looking man dressed in a gorgeous suit, looking at me like I was the best thing he’d ever seen. He handed me his business card and asked me to please give him a call so he could ask me out to dinner. I watched him walk away then looked down at the card.

An engineer. And at a firm I’d heard of. A firm everyone had heard of. You bet your life I called.

He wanted a traditional wife, he’d told me on our first date. Someone who would stay at home and raise his children. Someone who would care about his career, which was just starting to take off, as much as he did. It sounded like heaven to me. Raised by a single mother, I was a latchkey child before the term was even coined. Being a stay-at-home mother was exactly what I dreamed about being someday. I loved kids. I was only twenty-two, but my biological clock had been ticking ever since I’d started babysitting at fifteen.

After six dates, Roger declared himself enchanted and proposed. How could I refuse? He was offering me everything I ever wanted. This handsome, ambitious man wanted to take care of me and our offspring for the rest of our lives? Blame it on fiercely independent mother backlash, but I was more than happy to let him.

I became pregnant with Gordy when we were married less than a year. We bought the house in the Cove. Bought the minivan and the infant car seat. Life, as far as I was concerned, was beautiful.

Until Roger made partner. The youngest ever in the firm. He started to travel more on business. He started to buy more expensive suits. He started to complain about how I dressed. But the real fighting began when he enrolled us in a wine-tasting club. I just couldn’t get behind the idea of spitting out deliciously expensive wine once it was in my mouth.

By the time Gordy was six, Roger was no longer enchanted. Two years later, we were divorced.

Just as I was signaling the waitress for more iced tea, my cell phone rang. I dug in my purse for it and flipped it open. It was my lawyer.

“So, I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked in a rush of certainty that I really wasn’t feeling in my belly anymore. “I still have four more years.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “Lauren, maybe you should make an appointment and come in so we can discuss this.”

I closed my eyes. “No, give it to me now.”

She sighed as the waitress refilled my glass.

“All right,” she said. “No. You don’t have four more years.”

My mouth went dry. I looked at the retreating waitress in a panic. I didn’t have enough spit to call her back, so I took a gulp of iced tea then yelled, “Excuse me? Miss?”

She turned around and I said two words. “Chocolate Suicide.”

CHAPTER 2

Buzzed from the caffeine in two orders of Chocolate Suicide, I ran up the stone steps of Moira’s Tudor and jabbed the doorbell.

“Door’s open,” Moira yelled.

I found her in the living room, wearing only a pair of French-cut panties, rolling around on a Pilates ball.

“Jesus, Moira, what if I’d been the UPS guy or something?”

Moira jumped off the ball, her breasts bouncing with enthusiasm. “Then I guess I would still be getting some exercise,” she said with a smart-ass grin.

Moira was always alluding to other men and rumors were rife among the neighbors on Seagull Lane. I’d taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude and had no idea if the rumors were true.

“Geeze, honey,” she said as she took in my appearance, “you look like hell. And what’s that all over your shirt?”

I looked down. “I’ve just done two rounds with Chocolate Suicide.”

“Well, it obviously didn’t kill you, but, sweetie, you sure look wounded.”

For one harrowing moment I thought she was going to hug me. I don’t consider myself to be all that narrow minded, but that didn’t mean I wanted to feel Moira’s bare breasts against my T-shirt. Thankfully, she grabbed a kimono off the sofa and slipped into it. But not before I had enough information to put another Seagull Lane rumor to rest. Not an ounce of silicone on that body. I’d never seen them in action this long before. They were real, all right.

Heavens, was this any time to focus on another woman’s breasts? My world was crumbling. What did I care about silicone? “Something terrible has happened—” I began.

“Well, I’m here to listen and help but you seem awfully rattled. Before you start spilling your guts, you need a martini.” She peered at me again from under her false eyelashes. “Or maybe three.”

I was in no shape to argue. I followed her into the kitchen and watched her make a shaker of martinis.

“Here,” she said, handing me one. “Drink up.”

I’m usually a white wine kind of gal, but the first sip went down easily. Delicious and cold enough to ice skate over the surface. I took another sip. And another.

“Good,” Moira praised. “The color is starting to come back into your cheeks. Now let’s go get comfortable so you can tell mama everything.”

I followed her into the living room and sank onto one of the two white sofas that flanked the fireplace. While the women of Whitefish Cove often worked for years at taking layers of paint off their woodworks and crown moldings, Moira had done just the opposite. Everything was painted a creamy white—even the stone fireplace. Sacrilege to most of the ladies of the Cove, but I thought it was really quite striking. The color in the room came from a red shag rug on the floor and the artwork on the walls—which were mostly bold slashes of color on canvas—the kind of stuff you look at and think you could do yourself just as well. But what did I know about art?

“So,” Moira said once I’d let the down-filled cushions of the sofa enfold me, “spill it.”

I chugged the rest of my martini, put the empty glass on the coffee table, and spilled. The look on Moira’s face grew more horrified with each word.

“Honey,” she said when I’d finished, “you must have had a man for a lawyer.”

I shook my head. “Nope. A woman.”

“Traitor bitch,” Moira mumbled.

“Not really. I insisted on doing it this way.” I braced myself, figuring Moira would look at me and say stupid bitch. But she didn’t. Instead, she asked me why.

“Okay,” she said, “you’re not dumb. So what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I wanted my life to go on just as I’d planned it,” I said. “I wanted to be a ‘stay at home mother,’ I wanted to be a block watch captain, room mother, chairman of the annual Christmas cookie exchange. I wanted to drive a minivan to soccer games and sew Halloween costumes. I wanted everything that Roger had promised me when I’d married him, damn it. And I didn’t see why Gordy should have to suffer having his life uprooted just because his parents had fallen out of love. Besides, I’d always planned to go back to school and eventually support myself. I mean, I had no intention of living off a man who didn’t love me for the rest of my life.”

“I’m not sure I share your ethics on that one,” Moira murmured as she refilled our glasses from the shaker she’d brought with her from the kitchen.

“The most important thing to me was to know that Gordy would be taken care of until after college.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I guess that’s how I screwed up. I thought I was going to be taken care of for four more years, too.” I leaned forward again and buried my face in my hands. “Don’t you see? I thought I had four more years to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.”