Last night it was, I thought. The waiter set my antipasto before me. I popped a cherry tomato, chewed a hot pepper until tears blurred my gaze. My ex-husband drank. Things were beginning to blur for him, too.
“Why do you think she wanted to see you last night?”
I received the choice smile that put him in the good graces of the country club’s male members and in the firm beds of their wives. “The usual.”
This time I didn’t have to ask him for a definition. Our meals came. Paul ordered another bottle of wine, pushed the pasta around his plate. I hadn’t eaten all day. I finished my salad, entree and several more bread-sticks, heartened by the return of my normal, lusty appetite. Obsessions seem to revolve around three main categories—drugs, sex or food—and presently the last one was the safest for me. Fortunately, at thirty-one, my five-foot-eleven frame with one-eighty curves could handle it for now although I knew it was only a matter of time before things would spread and soften and I’d be left with cats and cross-stitch and the weekly tabloids for relief.
I ordered espresso, Paul a double brandy. Paul was a drunk but he wasn’t a sloppy drunk. I’d never seen him get abusive or belligerent. He just sat up straighter, and I could tell by that gleam in his eyes he believed himself somebody significant. Paul couldn’t have murdered Della Devine.
I finished my espresso, caught the waiter’s eye.
“Another, ma’am?”
“You can bring the check.”
“No rush.” My ex-husband handed his glass to the waiter.
“Another double, sir?”
Paul nodded. “Have another espresso, Silver. It’s not often we get together.”
“That would be because we’re divorced.” I shook my head at the waiter. He left to get Paul’s drink.
“Not by my choice.”
I pushed my chair from the table. “I’ve got an early class tomorrow.”
“And I’ve got an early tee time. One more drink and then we’ll go.”
It was an old refrain, one I’d sung often before, too. Still Della was dead, my ex-husband was a drunk and my dreams were as tenuous as the rubber band on my wrist.
The waiter returned. “Give me another espresso,” I ordered. “Make it a double,” I decided, sounding cavalier, feeling crazed.
Paul’s smile said, “That’s my girl.”
Old husbands like old habits are hard to break.
An hour and a half later, careening on caffeine and Paul unsteady when he stood, we walked to our cars. He’d set his keys on the table when he’d taken out his wallet to pay the bill. I’d lifted them when he’d gone to the men’s room. He was patting his pockets now.
“C’mon, Paul, I’ll give you a ride home. You can pick up your car in the morning.”
He opened his mouth to protest.
“I’ll swing by before class, give you a ride.”
“No need. Just sleep over.”
A drunk is bad enough. A leering drunk was pure sorrow. I might never need another rubber band again. “Let’s get you home.”
“The night’s young, Silver.”
He was right. Eleven forty-five was when the fun began in the clubs. I continued to my car. I looked back. Paul wasn’t following me.
He shrugged, gave me a thin smile. “An empty house. An empty bed.”
An empty bottle, I thought.
“I’m going to hang out a little longer. Give me my keys.”
“You’re in no shape to drive.”
“Sweet that you care, honey, but you aren’t responsible for me any longer.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t feel guilty if something happens to you.” I unlocked my car and got in. I rolled down the window.
“Admit it. You still care, Sterling.” He used my favorite nickname.
“One funeral per week is my limit.” I started the car. “Last chance.”
He came toward the car, although I knew he wasn’t coming with me. He was beyond persuasion. He leaned down. “Give me a kiss goodbye.”
I took it on the mouth this time. I felt he deserved that much. I watched him walk away, the man I’d once legally vowed to love. He headed toward a neon martini glass with a winking olive.
I WOKE WITH a caffeine headache. Auntie was sitting at the kitchen table with her soy milk and muttering to herself over the day’s stock market report. I poured a cup of black coffee. In for a penny, in for a pound. She let me take a sip before she asked with a skinny gaze, “Where were you last night?”
“Not shimmying to salsa.” Caffeine headache or not, I was mean in the morning. I sat down, instantly contrite. “Sorry.”
“Honey, you think I pay any mind to you in the morning? I know you’re ornerier than a gut-shot she-boar. It don’t faze me none, because you get it from me. Carl burped at the breakfast table one morning over fried eggs, and I stuck my fork in his arm. It stood right up on its own. Had to change his Sunday shirt and we were late for ten-o’clock service. Had to tiptoe and squeeze in next to Loretta Knolls with her big behind and her husband who smelled of pork fat. Carl didn’t burp at the breakfast table ever again.”
Carl was Aunt Peggilee’s third husband. Matrimonial mistakes are another thing I inherited from the Le-Grande women. Except Momma, who said she loved men too much to marry one. As I get older, Momma gets wiser to me.
“You’ll mellow with the years, Silver.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Rough night?” Aunt Peggilee’s gaze was on my black-and-blue wrist.
“Paul was seen leaving Della’s apartment yesterday morning. The police picked him up for questioning. I went down to the precinct. We had dinner.”
Aunt Peggilee shook her head, her beehive wobbling and threatening to give way. “Silver, Silver,” was all she said, but she looked at me like I was a calf being led to slaughter.
I took a swallow of coffee. “He drank to you.”
“The man would toast Beelzebub himself if it meant a good gulp.”
Must have been the fact I’d been foolish enough to marry him that made me feel compelled to defend him. “A lot of gals have done a lot worse.” It was a weak argument, but it was all I had.
“Silver, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind the man myself. I just mind him with you.”
“He’s not with me. We had pasta together.”
Auntie raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, I had pasta. He had several bottles of red. He and Della had been running into each other—”
“Like Mack trucks, I imagine.” Auntie took a delicate sip of soy milk.
“And I wanted to talk to him about her.”
Auntie eyed me over her glass. “Did you learn anything?”
I shrugged. “Pretty much what I expected. She was really shook up by her brother’s death and in a bad way.”
Aunt Peggilee studied me. “It’s not your fault, Silver.”
“I know. I just don’t know why…” I shook my head, too much caffeine and too little sleep making me sappy. “I wish I’d called her. Or she’d gotten in touch with me.”