The Other Wife. Shirley Jump

Nice straight lines, perfect columns of numbers. Everything adding up at the end.

      Before I put one foot on the floor of my bedroom, I liked knowing what was coming each day and how the day was going to end. And yet, I wanted more. Wanted to have a taste of spontaneity, which was what had attracted me to Dave.

      He was the Mutt to my Jeff, the Felix to my Oscar. I’d married him, thinking he’d help me loosen up a little, and he’d said he’d married me to keep him on track. But once we had the joint checking account and the mortgage to pay, it seemed those plans were dampened a bit.

      I had liked our life just fine. Dave, clearly, had not.

      The fact that I could have been so wrong hammered away at my temples. How could I have let details like this slip past me? What had I missed?

      I looked again at the book, flipping back to the prior appearances page. Harvey had been at the Dog-Gone-Good Show last year. And the year before. Where had I been then? Where had I thought Dave had been? I tried to think back, but my mind was as jumbled as a bag of jelly beans. “Maybe there are some people there who knew Dave,” I said aloud, talking to the dog, for God’s sake. He barked, as if he agreed that it was about damned time I tried to sort this out and restore order.

      He was right. If I was ever going to move past the shock of Dave’s second wife—and his well-trained dog—I had to find out where things had gone so totally wrong. “I need to find some people who can give me some answers.”

      Harvey perked up, his ears cocking forward. His tail began again.

      “And maybe I’m just nuts for talking to a dog about my cheating late husband.” I tossed the book onto the sofa and crossed into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine.

      The knock on my back door made me jump and nearly spill the Chardonnay. Through the glass oval I saw my sister. I groaned.

      I love my sister Georgia, and though we’ve always been close, our personalities couldn’t be more distant. We were as far apart as Venus and Earth. She’s the Venus, I’m the Earth. Georgia believes in taking life as it comes, living by the seat of your pants and saving for retirement when you get over the hill, not while you’re still climbing it.

      The most spontaneous thing I ever did was buy Tide without a coupon.

      I looked down at Harvey and realized I hadn’t managed to avoid a damned thing.

      “Hi,” Georgia said, letting herself in. “I figured you could use some company tonight. I brought wine.” She hoisted a bottle of Lambrusco.

      I have told my sister at least seventeen times that drinking a sweet, full-bodied red is the equivalent of downing sugar straight from the box. Give me something dry, unadorned and I feel I’m actually having a drink.

      Georgia never listened. She’d probably gone and bought the bottle because it was the prettiest one in the aisle at the Blanchard’s liquors.

      Still, she was here, and no one else was. I had to appreciate her for trying. “Come on in,” I said, gesturing inside. “And meet Harvey.”

      She halted inside the door, blinking at the Jack Russell terrier. “Harvey’s a…dog.”

      “Dave’s dog, to be precise.”

      “When did Dave get a dog?”

      “According to his notes—2000.”

      Georgia’s eyebrows knitted together. She laid the unopened wine bottle on the counter. “Notes?”

      “It’s a long story.” I suddenly felt tired, so tired. I wanted to collapse onto the floor and stay there until a different day dawned. One without a dog looking at me expectantly, waiting for his road trip to Tennessee. One where everything was as regular as a clock and I didn’t have to face a new question around every corner.

      “Here,” Georgia said, pressing me into a chair. “You look like hell.” Once I was situated, she crossed to the counter, opened the Lambrusco and poured each of us a glass. I thought of protesting, but the energy to do it had left me a long time ago.

      “Thanks,” I said, and took a long swig of the wine, forcing myself not to gag.

      “Harvey is Dave’s dog,” she repeated. “And he—”

      She cut herself off. I looked at her face, noticed her staring at the dog, and turned my gaze to him. He was balancing on his hind legs, that silly Beggin’ Strip on his nose. “And he does tricks,” I finished.

      “Oh my God,” Georgia said. “I recognize him now. I saw him on the Late Show once. He’s, like, famous.”

      “And now he’s mine. Surprise, surprise.”

      Georgia ran a hand through her riot of blond curls. Last month, she’d had it straight and red. The month before, it had been black and spiky. I was surprised Georgia’s hair hadn’t mutinied. “Wait a minute. You didn’t know Dave had a dog?”

      “I didn’t know a lot of things.” I took a second swig of wine. A third. “Like that he also had another wife.”

      There. I’d said the words out loud. Now it was real.

      All I had to do now was figure out a way to make it all go away.

      Georgia opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Another wife?”

      “And apparently a road show with Harvey at the center.” I shook my head. “I swear, I’m in The Twilight Zone.”

      “What are you going to do?”

      “Do?” I shrugged, then tipped the rest of the wine into my mouth. “Go to work. Try to lead a normal life again. And find a home for Harvey.”

      At that, he slid back down onto the floor and let out a whine.

      “You can’t do that. He’s like—” Georgia gave the canine an indulgent smile “—a lost spirit himself. He’s been through a lot, too.”

      “He’s also, like, a reminder of a husband who betrayed me,” I said to Georgia, “then left me with a mortgage and a funeral bill I can’t afford because God knows Dave was way too cavalier and happy-go-lucky to invest in something like long-term planning.” I drew in a breath, tried not to choke on it. “Or a marriage.”

      Georgia let the heated words roll away. “But aren’t you the tiniest bit curious? Like about why Dave did it?”

      “No.” I paused, finally listening to the thoughts and feelings that had been waiting behind Curtain Number Two in my head. “Okay, yes. I am.”

      “Then I say you investigate.”

      I shook my head, toying with the empty glass. “No. No way. I don’t go running around, investigating. I go to work, pay my taxes and balance my checkbook. Like a normal American.”

      “Who happens to be married to a bigamist.”

      The word hung in the air, heavy, fat. I wanted to pluck it up and toss it away, bury it under the brown carpet I’d never liked but agreed to because Dave had thought it was homey.

      I shook my head. “All I have to do is talk to Kevin. He and Dave were closer than anyone I know.” Or at least, they’d seemed to be. Of course, I’d thought I was pretty close to my husband. But apparently knowing the man’s inseam length and his favorite brand of shaving lather wasn’t intimacy.

      “What about the other wife? Did you meet her?”

      “She was at the wake.”

      “She was?” Georgia let out a couple of curses. “Which one?”

      “The one with the rhinestones on her shoes.”

      “Oh, those were cool shoes,” Georgia said. “But on her, totally inappropriate.”

      I loved my sister for adding that, for saying the words she knew I was thinking.