Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff
Chapter Eleven
It takes a second for his words to sink in—probably because my mind went into full-on red-haze mode the moment the words “marriage” and “license” left his mouth. Because what. The. Hell?
I mean, seriously. What the hell?
All the years I spent shaving twice a day so my legs never even held a hint of a five o’clock shadow flash in front of me like a horror movie. And this shithead thinks he can tell me to jump and I ask how high? I swear, at that moment, I hear a lightning bolt in my kitchen and the air crackles around me. Any latent feelings I might have had for him, any tiny hope that maybe deep inside his shriveled black heart he might actually have a shred or two of decency dies right then. I can feel them literally withering inside me.
It isn’t that I want him back. I don’t and I didn’t, not from the moment I got over the shock that he was cheating on me. My sadness at the divorce always stemmed more from my own naivete in staying as long as I did coupled with my abject hatred of failure than it ever did from regret over losing Karl. Which says everything, I know.
But still, no matter how low he goes in this divorce—and he’s gone low—a part of me still hoped he wasn’t a complete and total asswipe. Not for him but because it really stings to think about how many years of my life I wasted on a guy who has no redeeming qualities besides his wardrobe and his law degree, both of which I helped pay for.
How could I be so clueless? How could I tell myself over and over again that his self-absorption was just brilliance? That his overinflated ego was just well-deserved pride in his accomplishments even as I subverted my plans to make sure that he achieved everything he wanted to?
Yeah, well, that stops now. The sadness, the self-doubt, and most definitely the regret evaporate in the heat of my ire. I may have let him bully me our entire marriage—and pretty much our entire divorce, for that matter—but I’m not about to let him bully me about these papers.
I have no fucks left to give, and it feels glorious—so good that I’m ready to break out into a full-on Christmas mass Handel with its eighteen-syllable gloria.
“You know what, Karl?” I interrupt him as he continues going on about how much he and whatever-the-hell-her-name-is want a spring wedding and there are only a few more weeks of spring left to make that happen. “I will take as much time reading—and signing—the divorce papers as I would like. And there is not a goddamn thing you can do about that fact. You’ll get them when you get them, which might just be the first day of summer, the way I’m feeling right now.”
Karl starts making choking sounds about halfway into my diatribe, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t feel damn good. Whereas the old me might have stopped and checked to make sure he’s okay, the new me doesn’t give two flying farts.
In fact, the new me ends the call while he’s still in mid-splutter, and then I down my nearly full glass of wine in one very unladylike and completely satisfying gulp.
I did it. I hung up on Karl.
I’m a new woman who is broke, yes, and in a world of shit, yes, but I’m a new woman. There’s only one thing to do in a situation like this, and Aunt Maggie must be looking down from above because it’s at that very moment that the record starts over and the needle hits “Come Together.” So I dance right there in the kitchen. All by myself. Drinking straight from the wine bottle. Practically floating on fermented grapes and freedom.
The new me decides to hell with money, to hell with repairs. I’m not selling this house. I’m not moving back in with my parents. And I’m sure as hell not signing the divorce papers until I have an equitable settlement that reflects all the work I put into building Karl’s law firm, not to mention paying for his law degree. The shock has worn off, and I’m no longer the little mouse who let that bastard lock her out of her own apartment without even a squeak of protest.
I fucking ROAR.
If he wants a quick divorce, he’s going to have to pay for it—with my share of what we saved and earned in our marriage.
I add find a killer divorce attorney to my to-do list for tomorrow. I have no idea how I’m going to pay for said divorce attorney, but that’s a problem for another day. As is Mikey’s construction bid and the piles and piles of junk I have to sort through in this house.
Tonight, I’m going to revel in the fact that for once, I’m on the offensive and Karl is the one who is going to have to scramble to make things right.
The thought cheers me up immeasurably—although, not going to lie, my newfound happiness might also have something to do with the amount of wine I consumed in a very short period of time.
Regardless, I drop my phone on the kitchen counter and open more wine. I meander back into the family room without even bothering with a glass.
I put on “Here Comes the Sun” at top volume and move the dance party from the kitchen to the living room with every ounce of energy and determination I have inside me.
It turns out that there’s a lot more than I thought there was, because I dance through half the album—“Because,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” “Sun King,” “Mean Mr. Mustard,” and “Polythene Pam”—without taking a break longer than the few seconds it takes for me to swig another sip of wine.
But when “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” comes on—my favorite song on the whole album—I stumble to a stop. Holding the wine bottle to my lips like a makeshift microphone, I belt out every word along with Paul, John, George, and Ringo as I twirl and twirl and twirl around the room with my eyes closed.
I don’t stop until the song does, and when it finally winds down, I take another sip of wine, push my now-wild hair out of my eyes, slowly open them, and see a man standing right outside my open patio door.
I scream, high and loud. Then an instinct I didn’t even know I had takes over and I send the wine bottle soaring straight at his head. And it would have been an impressive toss if not for the fact that I’m tipsy as hell and throw like my grandma.
It ends up just barely grazing his forehead, but he gives a satisfyingly surprised yelp and stumbles backward…at the exact same moment I realize that my late-night—and by late-night I meant nine o’clock—visitor is none other than Mr. You Need to Mow Your Grass.
I don’t mean to giggle—it isn’t like I planned to—but it just sort of happens. The kind of out-of-control fit that leaves you gasping for breath and unable to stop.
Maybe I should be ashamed of nearly clocking him in the head, but he’s the one skulking around my backyard, after all—probably looking for more HOA offenses he can complain about.
He isn’t complaining now, though. In fact, he looks stunned as cheap merlot drips down his forehead.
Oh, shit.
My giggles die an instantaneous death as he stumbles back, his hand going to his forehead and his jaw dropping.
OH, SHIT!
His heel connects with one of Aunt Maggie’s many pet rocks at the edge of the small patio, and he goes down to the ground hard enough to jolt his entire body. And then he doesn’t move again. I freak out as I race across the room and down the steps. Did I hurt him? Concuss him? Kill him?
I drop to my knees by his head and try to see his face, but now that we’re on the grass, the light from the house is a lot dimmer, and I can’t get a good look at him.
I lean closer until my face is only inches from his, and I realize his eyes are closed—and he’s already developing a big, nasty-looking bruise on his forehead from where the wine bottle grazed him.
He groans a little, and I nearly weep with relief. “Oh my God! Are you all right?”
His eyes pop open.
Now that I’m this close, I can see that we have a massive problem.
“Don’t move!” I scream right in his face. “Your pupils are really dilated. That’s a sign of a concussion. I’m going to go call an ambu—”
His fingers curl around my wrist, cutting off the rest of my words.
“Dilated pupils are normal when it’s dark out,” he says, his voice deep and rich.
Thankfully, the wine bottle has boo-booed up his head and not his voice box.
“Still, don’t you think you should be checked out?” I move in extra close to see if his dilated pupils are the same size in both eyes but instead get distracted by how long his eyelashes are. Why? Because obviously I’m a horrible human being. “You got hit pretty hard.”
“One, it was a nearly empty bottle of wine. Two, you threw it,” he snarls as he sits up, still holding on to my wrist.
Okay, he isn’t slurring his speech, so that should reassure me. And it probably would have, except that he’s also making absolutely no move to get up off my grass or let me go, and the whole world is growing tingly and hot all of a sudden.
“Because you were skulking around my backyard,” I say, holding on to my indignation as much as I can while I slur my words. Hello, two bottles of wine. “Who does that besides creeps and perverts?”
“Are you calling me a pervert?” he asks as he lifts an eyebrow.
My pulse does a pause, thunk, thunk, thunk thing, and I might have forgotten how to breathe. I did. Thank God my lungs remember, allowing me to shoot back, “Or a creep. There were two choices there. In fact—”
Abruptly, he releases my wrist and covers his face. He is totally silent, but his shoulders start shaking.
I break off, horror slapping me in the face as he moves on to convulsing.
“Oh my God! You’re having a seizure!”
I remember reading that can happen with really bad head injuries. Fear skates down my spine. What if I really hurt him? I have to call 911.
I start to go for my phone, but his convulsions get worse—much worse—and vague memories of CPR start floating through my head. One thought about convulsions immediately comes to mind—I have to get something leather between his teeth before he bites off his tongue.
I drop on my knees again and grab his shoulders, shoving him back down on the grass with superhuman strength. I reach for his belt and have it unhooked in two seconds flat, then start to whip it off as though I’m being timed for a new Olympic event in undressing a man.
He stills immediately. “Stop!” he gasps out and grabs my hands, still wrapped around one side of his belt. “I was laughing.” He rolls up into a sitting position, pulling his belt loose from my death grip. “Not seizing.”
“Laughing?” I jump to my feet. “I thought I’d hurt you and you were laughing at me? You…you…you big jerk.”
I consider kicking him out of sheer spite but figure that might be overkill. At least the wine dripped down to his white button-up. Good luck getting that out.
“I’m sorry,” he says, still chuckling. “I couldn’t help it. You just looked so earnest trying to explain the difference between a creep and a pervert.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve decided you’re both, so you can leave now. Before I call the cops and report you for trespassing.” I turn and march up the three steps to my patio.
“Wait.” He catches up to me easily, even though I had a head start and he was on the ground. “Don’t you want to know what I was doing in your backyard?”
“Being a creep and a pervert, I assume, as we already established.”
“I was trying to let you know that your garage door is still open.” He isn’t laughing now—not even a superior guffaw. “We’ve had a bunch of robberies in the area lately, and I was afraid the door leading into your house wasn’t locked.”
It seems like a more reasonable excuse than the fact that Mr. Subparagraph Three in the HOA Bylaws was trying to get his rocks off looking in my living room window. Still, he’s not off the hook that easily.
I narrow my eyes at him. “So why didn’t you come to the front door and ring the doorbell?”
“Have you seen your porch?” He shoots me a disbelieving look. “There’s no way I’m taking my life in my hands and walking on that thing.”
It’s a good point, especially considering what Mikey had to say about the porch earlier. But— “Why didn’t you knock on the garage door? Wouldn’t that be the logical next step?”
“It’s what I planned to do, but when I was walking up your driveway, I heard music coming from the backyard—which you have to turn off at ten o’clock, by the way—and I figured I’d see if I could catch you back here.” He holds up his hands in a profession of innocence. “I swear, that’s all there was to it. No creepiness or perverted behavior intended.”
I totally believe him—it also makes much more sense than any other scenario—but I’m pissed off all over again from his comment about the music. Off by ten. Ugh. All these freaking men with their opinions and rules and it has to be this ways that no one actually cares about. “What happens if I don’t turn the music off until 10:01? Or worse, 10:05? Do the HOA police come and arrest me?”
His eyes gleam. “I’m pretty sure you get a warning first.”
“Well, aren’t I lucky?” The words drip with sarcasm.
His smile disappears altogether. “I should be going.”
“Finally, we agree on something!” I’m more than fed up with men telling me what to do. Still, I can’t send him away without at least offering help. “Can I get you some ice? For your head?”
For a second, it seems like he’s thinking about it. “That’s okay. I’ll get some at home.”
“Are you sure? I hit you pretty hard.”
“Believe me, I know exactly how hard you hit me.” His smile comes back for just a moment. “You know, the neighborhood women’s softball league is looking for a pitcher. You’d probably be a shoo-in.”
It’s my turn to laugh—of course, because of the wine, not because Mr. Music Off at Ten is charming. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You should. The MVP of each game gets free pizza and beer from Salvaggio’s.”
“Okay, then.” I step inside the house before turning to face him. “I’ll let you see yourself out.”
And then I close the door—and Aunt Maggie’s lemon-yellow-and-ecru-colored giraffe-print living-room curtains—right in his astonished (and still merlot-stained) face.