What Happens in Paris

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“Good. I wanted to catch you before you went to work.”

His brisk tone hinted that I might not like what he had to say. But I waited, holding firmly to the old adage she who speaks first loses.

“Annabelle, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, I’ve secured a Realtor, Jared Helmsley, to list the house for us.”

“Excuse me?”

I sat up and swung my feet over the side of the bed.

Not quite a fighting stance, but at least I wasn’t taking it lying down.

“I’d like to bring him by this afternoon to see the place so we can get it on the market as soon as possible.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, Blake. I told you at least ten times already, I’m not ready to list the house.” I’d just found an attorney to represent me and we hadn’t gotten that far yet. “I’m not doing anything until I talk to my lawyer. So just cool your jets.”

He heaved a sigh in my ear. A huffy, sissy sigh that irked me to the core. Oh, be a man.

He cleared his throat. “Annabelle, we’re going to have to do something soon because my partner and I are starting our own business and we need the capital. I want my half.”

Whoa! Wait a minute. Rewind. The implication propelled me to my feet.

“Your partner? Since when do you have a partner? You always worked better alone. That was the principal reason you broke off from the firm and started your own business.”

He cleared his throat again. God, it sounded like a chain saw sputtering and dying in my ear, and it was getting on my nerves. I got to my feet and started downstairs to keep myself from snipping at him about the ugly noise. On the way down, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the stairs. Holding the phone with one hand, I tried to tame my wild curls, which sprang out in every direction and made me look like the Raisin Bran sun.

“Not that kind of partner. Jared Helmsley is my…um…my partner.”

I braced myself on the kitchen counter. It took a few seconds before it sank in. “Oh my God, this Realtor is your boyfriend? Well, you certainly work fast. Tell me where you two met. No, wait—let me guess. Live Oak Park, right? Aww, I love hearing about blossoming romance.”

Not.

“Don’t be crass, Annabelle.”

Don’t be a pansy, Blake.

“I’m retiring from architecture, and Jared and I are starting an antiques business.”

Antiques. How typical. My husband was a gay clichе.

So much for the small pleasures of sheet angels and taking my half out of the middle of the bed. I needed a good strong cup of joe after waking up to this. I picked up my French-press coffeepot, measured water from the refrigerator and poured it into the kettle to boil.

“Don’t you think it’s a risky move to cash it all in and set up shop with a guy you just met?”

“I’ve known Jared a while.”

“Like six weeks a while? Or longer a while?”

“Longer.”

“How much longer, Blake?” I dumped some French-roast beans into the grinder. I pressed the start button and the machine hummed and chomped; the rich, aromatic promise of a good cup of coffee lulled me into hoping the day would get better.

He planned it this way, didn’t he? He had to have some sort of Annabelle Happiness Radar that sounded an alarm when my misery dropped to a bearable level. Because just when I started to feel okay he’d fling another doozy. I turned around and picked up the glass pot, getting it ready for the fresh coffee.

“Jared and I have been together for three years.”

I caught the answer just as the grinder stopped. The press pot slipped from my hands and shattered on the slate floor.

“What?”

He’d been in a relationship for three years?

“Did something break?” Blake’s voice sounded miles away. But as far as I was concerned, if he were in China it wouldn’t have been far enough.

Oh my God! Where was I when all this was going on? How could I have missed this? How could I have been so pathetically ignorant?

My free hand flew to my mouth, as much to stop the bile that was making its way up my esophagus as to contain my shock. My heart beat as if it were trying to break free from my chest.

As I moved around the glass shards, trying not to step on them with bare feet, I wished my heart would just break free and fall into the glass so that I could give it a decent burial. Like the coffeepot, it, too, was shattered beyond repair.

“Annabelle? Are you there?”

When he got arrested, not only was he cheating on me, he was cheating on the one with whom he was cheating on me. Obviously Jared was a little more forgiving than I was.

I wanted to scream at Blake for being so callous, for making a mockery out of our marriage, for making me feel so utterly, disgustingly unlovable. For making me feel as if this were somehow my fault.

“Yeah, I’m here. But you know what? I have to get ready for work. No Realtors, Blake. Just—just go away.”

I never got my coffee.

I didn’t have time to tame my hair into my old reliable chignon and stop at Starbucks and get to work in time for the big unveiling of our new marketing campaign to the Heartfield brass. It was the trial presentation before we took our “new image” to the board of directors. I couldn’t don my game face with wild hair.

So with or without coffee, life marched on.

For that matter, with or without Blake, with or without boyfriends and antiques businesses and whatever else Blake planned to spring on me around the next bend, I had to put it all aside and go to work.