Young Wives. Olivia Goldsmith

      “I’m not home,” Angie said. “I’m packing to go back there.”

      She couldn’t help but be stunned by how tall, how really beautiful he was. The too-long bones and the too-broad shoulders should have made him hulking, but there was some innate grace, some trick of movement he’d been given, that made him seem graceful. She pulled her thoughts away from his looks, or her attraction to them, although it was difficult to do. Her stomach tightened yet again. She thought she might actually be sick

      Reid took only one step into the room. “Please, Angie,” he said. “Tell me you want to stay here.”

      “Like hell I will,” Angie said and pointed into the closet. “Why would I? So she and I could both share the bathroom with you? Just tell me if she’s the one you’ve been sleeping with all year, or if she’s some new one.”

      Angie hated how she sounded—shrewish and, underneath it, so obviously hurt. But what else could she do except try to be a true Wakefield and keep her mouth shut? Forget about that. Reid moved toward her and she took a step backward, stumbling against the chair. Just then Sean stuck his head in.

      “We finished with the books,” he said. “What’s next?”

      “The coffee table and the two blue lamps,” she told him, her eyes never leaving her husband’s face. Sean quickly looked from her to Reid and didn’t say a word. Once he had disappeared, Reid took another step toward her.

      “Angie, please. Pay absolutely no attention to that. I know it was wrong, and stupid. It’s just that I was so lonely without you.” He sat down at the edge of their bed.

      The thing about Reid, she realized, was there was a certain attractive childishness about him. Perhaps if he wasn’t so good looking, he wouldn’t seem as sweet and vulnerable. But to see a sexy, handsome, tall man admit to his weaknesses, to fess up to his fears as Reid had always done, was, in a way, deeply moving to Angie. Like a child, Reid was controlled by his feelings. Maybe that had made her feel powerful. Or maybe it had given her the false feeling that she alone had pierced the shell of his perfection.

      “You don’t know what it’s been like. Just when I realized how empty, how shallow I was, and that your love was the only thing that mattered, you left me.” He had his head in his hands, but then cocked it toward the closet. “I’ve only been trying to hold it together,” he said. “I can’t concentrate. I can’t eat. I’m drinking half a bottle of Scotch each night. I feel like shit. I mean, I know I am a shit, but I also feel like shit all the time.” He looked at her and his lashes were wet. “Nothing works for me, except you. And you took yourself away.”

      Yes. His naiveté was attractive. The thing was, Reid probably meant what he said. But he had probably meant what he had said to whomever the Soprano was. Somehow his simplicity was duplicity. He was so vulnerable.

      “So you asked your girlfriend to move in—even though you don’t want her,” Angie said, and took the suede pump in her hand and chucked it at him as hard as she could. It hit his chest, but he’d got his hands up fast enough to ward off most of the impact. That was Reid—never really without some protection. Angie couldn’t help shaking her head. What a stupid, ineffectual woman weapon—throwing a size seven-and-a-half black suede pump at your soon-to-be-ex’s heart. Why not a .38-caliber bullet, one of the kind that was scored on top so it would explode once it hit its target?

      Reid rose from the bed, dropped the shoe, and moved across the room to her. All at once, it felt to Angie as if everything went in slow motion—as Reid walked closer, he seemed to get farther away. She didn’t know if she wanted him beside her or out of the room, out of the building, out of her life. She couldn’t move. She felt as if minutes, maybe hours, were going by as he took one step, then another, toward her. At last he was in front of her, so close that she could smell the laundry scent coming from his shirt. He stood silently before her, but even if they didn’t speak in words, she felt every cell in her body drawn to him. Was this, she wondered irrelevantly, what they called animal magnetism?

      Finally he spoke. “I love you, Ange. I swear I do. If you forgive me, you’ll never regret it.”

      Angie leaned her head against his shoulder, and his arm gently, so gently, tightened around her. “I gave away the ring you gave me,” Angie said.

      “I’ll get you another one,” Reid assured her.

      “I told my parents what you did,” Angie told him.

      “I’ll spend the rest of my life living with the shame.” Gently, tenderly, he stroked her hair. She couldn’t help but shiver. Her face was fine, her hair was fine, all of her was fine. Her mind went blank and that was a relief. Any guilt, any doubt she had, she ignored.

      It felt so good to be sheltered in his arms. Angie wanted to rub first one cheek and then the other against his chest, the way cats did to mark their territory.

      The Soprano meant nothing to him. Maybe this whole bizarre time could be written off, forgotten. Maybe it was just a lapse and Reid had learned a lesson. But at the moment Angie couldn’t think. This wasn’t about thinking.

      There was some noise out in the living room, the sound of something toppling over, but thudding, not crashing. One of the men yelled something, and then a woman’s voice answered him. Angie froze. It couldn’t be. It was. The voice. The Soprano.

      The door swung open and Lisa stood there. Angie, feeling caught out and guilty, took a step back from her husband. Reid took a step back from her as well. “What the hell is going on?” Lisa asked, clearly furious as she looked from Angie to Reid.

      Angie felt ashamed. After all, she’d burned up hours of Lisa’s time talking about how she hated this man. She stared at Lisa, who looked very, very good; her hair was blonder, and she seemed taller and thinner than ever. “You got my message,” Angie began, but at the same time Reid said, “How did you—”

      “What the hell are you doing here?” Lisa said to Reid.

      “It’s my house,” he answered, defensive as a child.

      “Lisa, it’s okay,” Angie said. “We’ve started to talk things over.”

      “The hell you are,” Lisa said, still looking at Reid. “I ought to report you to the department of narcissism. They’d come right in here and shut you two down.”

      “What are you talking about?” Angie asked.

      “Oh, shut up,” Lisa said, violently. “Do you know how sick I am of listening to you whine?” She looked at Reid. “What do you think you’re doing to me?” she asked.

      It took that long for Angie to get it. But then she did—big time. She looked from Reid, who averted his eyes, to Lisa, who stared insolently at her. The blue dress, the shoes, the advice to stay away—now it all made sense. Size four. The Soprano. Why, in all those hours of talking, of complaining and bitching, had she never noticed Lisa’s voice? Angie shook her head, pushed past Lisa, and walked out into the living room. “That’s it,” she told Sean and Thomas. “Wrap it up. I’m out of here.”

16

       In which Michelle, Brownie Queen, has to let them eat cake

      Michelle hadn’t been able to sleep since the bust. She was exhausted, but every time she started to drift off, she’d start awake, a cold sweat covering her. She couldn’t stop her mind from racing. She didn’t want to wake up Frank, so she shuffled down to the kitchen and decided to straighten up the cubicles that held mail, magazines, and Frankie’s school papers. There she found a neon green paper with the reminder of the bake sale that was being held today during all lunch periods. Bake sales were always the best fund-raiser, she decided she’d bake. Making brownies at three-thirty in the morning wasn’t exactly a normal thing to do, but she needed to do something.

      Michelle