Nobody’s Perfect

Chapter 3

I fell asleep at my computer around 1:00 a.m. The thing they don t tell you about YouTube is that it isn t all fun and games. It takes a lot of hard work to make a video, and more than once, I wanted to kick myself for not getting a second take of something the night before.

I d been enjoying Parker s company too much to think ahead to the editing.

When I finally got out of bed at nine, it was with a groan.

Thursday.

Cleaning day.

There wasn t much to clean, but a habit was a habit.

Dylan s room, the guest room, and the guest bathroom were all practically untouched. I gave the sinks, tub, and toilet each a good scrub anyway. Now that there were only two of us, I was magically caught up on laundry, other than sheets and towels. The primary bedroom was straightened; the dining room and living room looked unused. I had to wipe a bit of spilled coffee from the breakfast room table, but both it and the kitchen were clean because I d only had a microwavable burrito for supper the night before.

I sat down in front of my computer, but there wasn t anything to do there, either. I d already edited the video. I didn t blog anymore. I didn t even want to go on social media.

Vivian, you may need to get a job.

A job. Oh, how funny that I was thinking about a job now. I wasn t supposed to be a stay-at-home mom. No, I d been on my way to working in television. I d wanted to be on air as a broadcaster or, failing that, work behind the scenes as a producer. Thanks to the blond hair and toothy grin I d inherited from my father, I d thought I was well on my way.

But then I met Mitch.

Homecoming night at UT Knoxville, and I went to my first frat party ever. A shy, lanky guy leaned against the wall, and I tried to decide if he was a student or an alum. Sure, he had a slightly receding hairline, but he had a close-shaven face and blue eyes, giving him baby-face appeal. At first I thought it was my imagination that he was staring at me.

Then he started walking my way.

I wouldn t have characterized him as handsome then-even though I d come to love his blue eyes and the cleft in his chin-but something about the way he looked at me made me feel especially beautiful.

Hi, I m Mitch.

As pickup lines went, this one was unimaginative, but, then again, that was part of his charm. I didn t need another guy to ask me if it had hurt when I d fallen from heaven. And I didn t believe in astrology, so I could not possibly care less about my sign or anyone else s.

Vivian, I said as I extended my hand.

The rest, as they say, was history.

He walked me home later, and we sat outside my dorm, talking a little too loudly because our ears were still ringing from the live band at the party. I found out that he had already graduated from UT Knoxville-had already graduated from dentistry school, at that. He was starting a new practice in Bearden, and he wondered if I would like to go with him to the movies sometime next week.

I said yes, and he blinked in surprise. He had actually drawn back in on himself, as if expecting me to say no. The way his eyes lit up and his grin widened made my stomach do a somersault. Unlike my last boyfriend, here was a man-yes, a man -who didn t act like he was doing me a favor by giving me the time of day.

I ll admit, my ego was gratified.

Then, after I yawned one time too many, he leaned forward, and I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he took my hand and placed a kiss on the back of it. I d been surprised and charmed, the tingly sensation from his kiss running up my arm.

When I stood, he stood. I mentally applauded his manners. He waited, hands in his pants pockets, until he saw that I d safely entered the dorm. I paused just inside the door to give him a shy wave.

Bet no one s kissed a hand around here since this dorm was opened back in 1925, said the resident assistant at the desk. I hadn t expected anyone to be there, so her words startled me.

Probably not, I said, impressed with the romantic gesture far more than I wanted to be.

He might be a keeper, she said.

Yeah. He just might be.

I shook the cobwebs from my brain. I didn t need a job. I had a job: making sure everything in the house ran smoothly. Maybe it hadn t been the career I d originally wanted, but it was my job nonetheless.

A quick glance at the clock told me that Mitch wouldn t be home for quite some time. He d even told me not to worry about supper for him, but I knew he always came in hungry, so I made some of my famous chicken salad-fine slices of Granny Smith apples instead of celery and just a hint of curry.

From there I went to check on the towels and sheets in the dryer. An errant sock had somehow gotten into that load, so I went to Mitch s sock drawer.

Ah, here was the disorder I d been looking for, something to occupy my time.

The drawer was so stuffed it wouldn t close, and I saw that he d been cramming his socks in there without bothering to pair them first. There was a sock with a hole in the toe, too.

We d been arguing about his sock drawer for years. I could nag him about it when he got home, or I could just go through his socks and get rid of the ones with holes, maybe mate the socks that were solo.

About halfway through my task, I saw a manila folder at the bottom of the drawer.

Odd.

Vivian, you really shouldn t be looking at Mitch s things.

Sure, but we were married, after all. It was probably one of his folders full of expenses that needed to be escorted back to the office. Just last week I d caught the man putting the milk in the pantry and the Reynolds Wrap into the fridge. A bit of an absent-minded professor, my Mitch was.

I placed the folder on top of the dresser and returned to the socks. I started to leave it there for him to deal with it, but then I had a thought: What if Mitch had hidden the folder on purpose? What if it contained some kind of surprise for our upcoming twenty-fifth anniversary next year?

We d glided right past our twentieth without doing anything special, and I was determined we would celebrate both Mitch s fiftieth birthday as well as our next anniversary with something splashy.

And Mitch? Not so good at the splashy.

I figured I d better check this out, because he might need my help with the planning, whether he wanted it or not.

And to be honest, I was absolutely lousy with letting surprises be surprises. Mitch said I was a control freak. I liked to think of it as . . . wanting to be prepared.

You re nosy. That s what you are.

I opened the folder. The first page said Divorce Package.

At that point the letters started swirling around. My vision blurred, my knees wobbled, and my throat got so tight I couldn t swallow a prayer.

Mitch is leaving me?

I sat down on the bed.

But that made no sense. We d already been down to Florida to look at houses. I d just talked to him yesterday morning. He certainly hadn t acted like a man who wanted a divorce.

He was keeping these papers for a friend. That had to be it.

But when I flipped through the forms, I saw handwriting. Mitch s handwriting.

So neat and so precise as he listed our assets, our entire marriage reduced to numbers.

I put the papers down and pinched my arm, hard.

No, I was awake.

I was sitting in the primary bedroom where we had had sex . . . well, some time ago. The room smelled lightly of lavender from the detergent I d used on the freshly washed sheets. Sunlight shone on the hardwood floors that I d installed myself over the summer.

For heaven s sake, we d almost paid off the house! Dylan had just gone to college! We were entering the empty-nest years, reconnecting and traveling and doing all the things we d put off while raising our son.

He wanted to end our marriage now ?

It made no sense.

My hand lost its ability to grip, and the folder fell from my grasp. Papers spilled all over the shiny floor.

Instinctively, I slid off the bed to clean up the mess.

Because cleaning up messes was what I did.

I giggled, a nervous, squeaky sound.

Here was a mess I might not be able to manage.

Once I d gathered all the papers, I slapped the folder shut, stood, and shoved it into my lingerie drawer.

But what was I supposed to do now?

I couldn t call Mitch, because he was probably on a plane. I couldn t call my mother for reasons, very good reasons.

Breathe, Vivian.

Nope. I couldn t breathe in the bedroom. I walked to the kitchen and laid my hands on the cool granite tile. I could almost breathe there, but I still couldn t think.

Lucky wound between my legs and yowled.

What do you want?

She yowled again, clearly not understanding I was going through something, possibly a nervous breakdown. I tried to stare her down, but she just looked up at me with her one green eye. She looked like an off-kilter Cyclops cat.

A Cyclops cat who was judging me.

Be calm, Vivian. There could be a very logical reason for this.

Not that I could think of one.

I gave in to the cat and went back into the hall to feed her. Sure enough, the food bowl was empty. She rewarded me with a purr as she ate, and I reached down to stroke her long, silky fur. She d never leave me.

Well, not as long as you keep feeding her, she won t.

Now that I d fed the cat, though, what should I do? What could I do since Mitch wasn t here to answer my questions?

Should I stress-clean? Drag out all Mitch s clothes to the yard and set them on fire?

You can t repeat the Incident, Viv. Look what happened to Harriet. Besides, there could be a very logical explanation for all of this. Now is not the time to go all Waiting to Exhale on the man.

That might be true, but dragging all Mitch s clothes into the driveway and causing a neighborhood disturbance like Harriet had done last year had its cathartic merits.

Should I sit down and have a glass of wine? Ding , ding , ding , we have a winner from the divorc e clich buffet.

Except I couldn t find the corkscrew.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

No, there it was in the drawer to the left of the oven. Mitch had put it there, even though I d told him a hundred times that it made more sense to put it in the drawer to the right of the oven.

What did one pair with divorce? The sauvignon blanc in the fridge or the merlot on the wine rack? I would ask Rachel, but she was still at school. That and the thought of telling anyone about my discovery made my stomach flop, so I read the labels instead. The merlot had hints of blackberry and a velvety texture. This didn t feel like a velvety time, so on to the second bottle.

I stopped reading the sauv blanc label when I got to beautifully expressed acidity. That described both my current state and would be a great punk band name. Sauvignon blanc it was.

Skipping the foil cutter, I plunged the corkscrew into the cork. With some work, I uncorked the bottle and poured it into my Mom Scouts tumbler.

My chest ached, and I reached up to rub the spot just over my sternum. Thank God it was Thursday. I didn t want to see Rachel and Abi yet. I didn t want to tell them that I, Vivian, the stay-at-home mom, would apparently be getting a divorce.

Oh God. Now you ll have to get a job.

That thing that had seemed like a good idea not too long ago now felt insurmountable. Where the hell would I start? The last time I d made a r sum , Titanic was still in theaters.

I drank too much wine in one swallow and coughed as it burned down my throat. Acidic, indeed. As I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, I remembered something about my mother.

Clear as day, I could see her pouring bottles of alcohol down the kitchen sink back when I was twelve.

Mom, what are you doing?

She d stiffened, then rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin before turning around. I guess you might as well know now, Vivian. Jeff and I are getting a divorce.

Mascara ran down her red-splotched cheeks, and her eyes held an I ll-show-you fire that I hadn t fully understood until, well, today.

Jeff s not my dad, I said.

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, looking upward as if asking an equally put-upon deity for patience. No, no he s not. But he s still leaving.

It was then, on the eve of my mother s second divorce, that she gave me her rules for navigating the institution:

1. Don t drink your feelings.

2. Never let him know he s hurt you.

3. Don t ever jump from one man to another. Ever.

4. Check all your joint bank accounts as soon as you find out, and keep records on everything.

5. Hire the best lawyer.

I took one sip of my wine and then another. There went number one. Number three shouldn t be a problem. Number two was out of the question since I was a horrible poker player. That left numbers four and five.

With trembling fingers, I took out my phone and checked our bank balances and credit cards. Everything looked okay. I took screenshots as a record of how much money was in each account.

Lawyer.

How could I tell which lawyer was the best from Google? Who would I have to call to verify?

My mother. My five-times-wed mother, Heidi Stutz Vance Smith Rodriguez Malone Quarles. She would know who to call.

My eyes stung and my cheeks burned. I couldn t call my mother, because she was the one person in the world who could now tell me, I told you so.

I put my wineglass down on the counter and dug the heel of my hand into my forehead.

You just had to be smug all these years, didn t you.

Oh, I might not have originally wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but I d never missed a chance to remind my mother that I did all the things she didn t: clean, cook, fetch dry cleaning, organize bake sales for the PTA, host Christmas parties for Mitch s employees. In a hundred little ways, I d implied I could keep a husband-unlike her-because I was a perfect mother and wife. She d warned me and warned me and warned me. She nagged me about going back to school, nagged me about having a separate checking account, nagged me about having a marketable skill.

And I did not listen.

Well, I didn t listen well enough.

How ironic was it that I did actually have my own stash of money thanks to the fact my father, her first husband, had passed away three years ago? Mitch had wanted to use that inheritance to buy a mountain cabin or a condo in Florida, but, for once in my life, I had put my foot down and said the money was to be saved. When Mitch pressed me on the issue of what I could possibly be saving for, I d told him I didn t know, but I d tell him when I figured it out.

And that was the end of that.

You re going to have to call her eventually.

Eventually was the key word.

My eyes locked on the banana tree at the end of the counter. I felt like those bananas-bruised, blackened, unwanted. I couldn t get used to not buying so many now that Dylan had gone off to college.

Dylan.

My heart lurched forward as if to protect him. I grabbed the cool counter to steady myself against the dizziness.

What the heck could I possibly tell my only child? That I was a failure as a mother? That I hadn t managed to keep his parents together?

Whoa. Stop.

It took two to tango, and breaking up certainly wasn t my idea.

If Mitch wanted a divorce, then he could explain to his son why he was breaking up our family.

I reached for the bananas.

I did my best thinking while cooking, and it was time to make those almost rotten bananas into something delicious. If I could salvage the bananas, then maybe, just maybe, I could salvage myself.