Four Blondes

We run up to the bus, waving and shouting, and we get on and Miles has two tokens and we’re laughing, walking to the back of the bus where we sit down and look at each other and crack up, then we look up and everyone on the bus is staring. I hiccup and Miles takes a swig from the bottle of champagne. Then our clasped hands fall apart as we stare out opposite windows, watching the thick streaks of rain against the glass.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

Hubert is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading The Wall Street Journal.

“Is there, ah, coffee?” I ask.

“In the coffeemaker,” he says, not looking up.

I wander over

to the counter and bang some cabinet doors, looking for a coffee cup.

“Try the dishwasher,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say.

I pour the coffee, sit down. “You’re up early,” he says.

“Mmmmm-hmmm,” I say. He slides the Post toward me.

I take a sip of coffee. I open the paper to Page Six.

The headline reads PRINCESS BRIDE LIFE OF THE PARTY.

And then the copy: “It seems it’s Prince Hubert Luxenstein who is keeping back his glamorous wife, Cecelia, and not the other way around. Cecelia Kelly, the former art dealer, has been laying low ever since her nuptials two summers ago in Lake Cuomo, Italy, at the 200-acre family castle owned by the groom’s father, Prince Heinrich Luxenstein. But last night at the fiftieth anniversary of the ballet, the beautiful new princess, sporting a new gamine hairstyle and wearing a gown by Bentley, arrived solo and charmed dinner guests who included . . . before making a dramatic exit with new screen heartthrob Miles Hanson.”

I fold the paper.

“Cecelia . . .,” he says.

“Do you still love me?”

“Cecelia . . .”

I hold up my hand. “Don’t. Just don’t,” I say.

V

Dear Diary:

I think I’m getting better.

Today I get up and put clothes on and have a cup of coffee and read Hubert’s leftover papers, and I look at my watch and it is nine o’clock and I suddenly realize that I could do something today. This is such a strange feeling that, for a moment, I consider taking a couple of Xanaxes, but then I realize that, for the first time in—what? years?—I don’t want to be high. I am actually thinking about going uptown and—HA—making a surprise visit to my husband’s office.

And the horrible thing about it is that the more I think about it, the more compelled I am to do it. After all, Hubert is my husband, and what could be more natural than a wife’s going to visit her husband at lunch-time? Especially if she thinks he might be having an affair (which he might be), and especially if she thinks that he probably has other plans for lunch (which he most likely does). This conundrum will force him to choose his wife or the previous lunch plans. His choice will tell the wife just about all she needs to know about her husband, which is a) if he chooses work over his wife, he’s a shit and he doesn’t love her, or b) if he chooses his wife over his work, he’s probably still a shit but he may love her. Either way, I have a feeling that Hubert is going to lose today, and I want to be there to witness it.

For some reason, I am wearing a navy-blue hat and navy-blue-and-white-striped gloves when I tap on the receptionist’s desk with a gold Dunhill lighter. I also have a cell phone that doesn’t seem to work in my bag, along with two old tampons and a crumbly dog biscuit. “H.L., please,” I say to the receptionist, who doesn’t do anything at first and then says in a cold, bored voice, “Whom shall I say is here?” and I say, “His wife,” and she looks me up and down and says, “Just a minute,” and all I can think about is that she hasn’t recognized me, for some reason, and this infuriates me and makes me want to KILL her, so I bang annoyingly with the lighter again.

Then I remind myself that I am getting better.

She picks up the phone and says to someone, “Is H. there?” and then, as if there’s some question about it, she says, “Well his wife is here?” Then she puts down the phone and says, “Someone will be out to see you.”

“What do you mean, someone will be out to see me? Where’s my husband?” I say. “I didn’t come here to see someone, I came to see my husband.”

“He’s not in his office.”