Steph changed the subject quickly. “Are you changing your name back?”
“No. I thought about it, but so much of my business life is under the name Hanley that I’m going to keep the name. And, after all, it’s so much easier to pronounce and spell than Florcyk.”
“Lord knows you’re right about that,” Steph said. “Remember, in school, how we always waited for the teacher to get to your name the first day. No one could ever say it right.”
Jessie smiled. “Remember Mr. Honeywell? He never did learn to pronounce it. He got as far as Fler-cuck and called me that all year.” Jessie pictured their senior English teacher. He had held all the girls spellbound with his sensual reading of eighteenth-century English poetry.
“God, he was something,” Steph said with a small sigh. “I still get the hots just thinking about him. He had the greatest buns in those tight jeans he wore.”
“A tight, flat rear and that fantastic bulge in the front. We speculated for hours about whether he wore padding in his shorts.” Jessie smiled. She hadn’t thought sexy, outrageous things like that in years, and, she suddenly realized, she missed it.
“And what about men in your life?” Steph asked. “Are you dating yet?”
“Yes and no. There’s a guy I’ve known for a few months. We’ve been to dinner a few times in the past few months and I think he’s interested.”
“And you? How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not ready yet. Steve, that’s his name, Steve’s sweet and kind and thoughtful. But I feel, I can’t explain it, sort of closed in.”
“So come back here and stay with Brian and me for a few weeks or longer.” Steph had been trying to convince Jessie to visit for months. “You’re selling the house so you have to move anyway. Let someone in your office handle the arrangements and get the hell out of town for a while.”
“Oh, Steph, I wish I could.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I have responsibilities here.”
“Like what?”
“Like the office.” Jessie owned Ferncrest Realty, a small but successful real estate agency specializing in newly built town houses. “And selling the house. Packing, organizing, you know.”
“You’ve told me over and over that the office runs like clockwork. I’m sure you hate to admit that it can get along without you, but it can and it will. And how will it feel showing strangers through your house, knowing that they’re criticizing your landscaping and your wallpaper? You don’t need that right now.”
Jessie looked down at the backyard. She remembered planting most of the red, white, and pink azaleas that blazed in full bloom along the foundation. “I know that, but I don’t mind selling the house. It was always too ostentatious for my taste. Rob was the one who wanted a big, showy house in which to entertain. His lawyer told me that he wanted to keep it, buy me out but I told him no. I won’t have Rob and bimbette living here.” Her eyes misted as she stared into the master bath and took in the new fixtures she and Rob had had installed just a month before ‘the event.’ “I just can’t bear that.”
“I understand, Jessie. If, God forbid, anything like that ever happened to Brian and me, I wouldn’t want him to live here either.”
“Everything has two sides, you know, and sometimes my feelings change from minute to minute. There’s a big part of me that still feels the history in here. So much entertaining: the bridge games, the country club crowd that Rob wanted so much to be a part of, barbecues on the deck.” Jessie tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder and, with all the pins now removed from her long, red hair, combed her slender fingers through the strands and rubbed her scalp. “That’s all over now.”
“So, why stay there? Come to Harrison and stay with us. You know this huge old place has plenty of room. You could have the entire end of the house you had when you were here two years ago. All the privacy you could want, and all of my company you can stand.”
“Oh Steph, it sounds so tempting.”
“I wish you’d come. Harrison has so much to offer you, especially at this point in your life. It will be like old times. Girl talk, movies. We can lounge by the pool and talk about life, love and good sex, not necessarily in that order.”
“What about my life here? I’ve got to find a place to live.”
“Do it later. You don’t want to make any long-term decisions right now anyway and you can certainly afford to dump most of your stuff. Put things you really want to keep in storage and split.” Jessie paused, so Steph continued, “It would be so great. You and me, on our own near the big city. Nobody gleefully keeping you up to date on Rob’s escapades. Just Broadway plays, expensive restaurants, museums, Bergdorfs, Bloomingdales, Saks, Lord & Taylor’s, the works.”
“Not too many restaurants,” Jessie said, running her palm down her flat stomach. “My figure couldn’t stand the calories.”
“Calories are overrated.” Steph stopped suddenly. “Whoa. Wait a minute. Was that a yes I heard?”
Jessie flopped back onto a stack of pillows. “Why the hell not? For a couple of weeks anyway.”
Steph squealed like the girls had when they were kids. “Wonderful. I never believed you’d actually agree.”
“Are you sure you’re not regretting your offer now that I’ve said yes?”
“Of course not. It will be great. I don’t mean to push my luck but how soon can you get here?”
Jessie giggled and pulled her datebook from her bedside table. She flipped the pages. “Okay. It’s May seventeenth.” She planned out loud. “Give me a month to get a few arrangements made. Make it six weeks. I’m selling most of the furniture anyway, so all I have to do is sort out some personal stuff. God, the amount of crap one collects in nine years.”
“Just pull out what you want and let Rob sort out the rest. Since you’re there, you get first dibs.”
“It’s all in that long-discussed separation agreement anyway. Now let’s see.” She planned out loud, her pencil tapping the dates on the calendar in her book. “The house goes on the market July first. I’ll put a few things in storage, pack a couple of bags…. How about I fly out June twenty-fifth. That’s a Sunday. I’ll plan to stay for….”
“Leave your return open. Maybe I’ll be able to convince you to stay for the whole summer.”
“Okay. No return just yet.” Jessie wrote ‘Go to Harrison’ across the space for June twenty-fifth, then slammed her datebook shut and dropped it onto the bed. “Oh Steph, thanks. Now that I’ve made the decision, I feel so relieved. I guess I didn’t realize how much this divorce has taken out of me.”
“Well I did, and I’m delighted that you’ve finally made the right decision.”
The two women talked for another half an hour, and, after she hung up, Jessie pulled off her clothes and soaked in a hot bath. Then, after a dinner of pasta, salad, and a glass of Beck’s Dark, she collapsed into bed and slept through the night for the first time in weeks.
Later that evening, in her bedroom in Harrison, Stephanie stretched out beside her husband Brian. “I can’t believe I actually talked her into coming out here. It will be so good for her.”
Steph was Jessie’s physical opposite, tall and angular with long legs and a slender, tight figure. She had recently had her almost-black hair styled into a shoulder-length