Lenny chuckled, and I knew he could see through me. “Just think about it.”
I didn’t want to think about it. It was one thing to view Mike as being selfish and wanting to have his cake and eat it too. It was a bigger, uglier situation if he didn’t want my cake and was plotting his way out.
I didn’t know if it was the former or the latter, but I did know one thing about my husband, and that was that he thought everything through. If Mike was planning to leave me, I needed to be prepared, because he would have contingency plans on top of contingency plans and the risk was high that I had already been set up for failure.
CHAPTER 3
LILLIAN
My mother used to say that she’d cut the balls off any man who ever cheated on her. It would have been funny, except that my mother was just crazy enough to do it. Every time she made the reference, whatever man she was dating would invariably shift uncomfortably in his seat, his legs crossing to protect his sacred treasures.
When I married Mike, she conveyed the threat to him, her eyes flat and watery from three Bloody Marys, the edge of a nipple peeking embarrassingly free of her yellow formal dress as she leaned over the wedding reception table and stubbed out her cigarette on the rose-decorated china. Smoking was forbidden, as a hotel employee had mentioned twice already, but that was my mom for you. Rules, as with income taxes, common courtesies, and speed limits, didn’t apply to her.
When I was young, I was ashamed of her. Now, with my fortieth birthday looming ... I almost envied the reckless disregard she had for other people’s impressions. She wanted something, she took it. She found something entertaining, she did it. She disliked someone, or something they did, she let her opinion be known.
I had fought so hard to avoid any similarities to her, but maybe, beneath the foul language, slutty outfits, and afternoon martinis ...maybe there was something valuable there. Something that would have distinguished me from the bland individual I had become. Some color.
God, I could use some color. Right now I was so boring I was falling asleep on myself.
I left the cemetery and decided to swing by theLos Angeles Timesoffice. I hadn’t visited the El Segundo office in almost three months, and I rode the elevator up to the editorial floor with a bit of nostalgia as I thought of our previous downtown location, which had been the home of theTimesfor over eighty years. Now we were in a building that had gone out of its way to avoid any uniqueness or beauty. Mike was convinced the company was on its last legs. Print, in his opinion, was dead—and if my morning e-book purchase was any indication, he was right. Still, I’d hold on to the feel of newsprint as long as I could, especially when my name appeared weekly in eight-point font on its obituary pages.
I stopped in the bullpen, where my in-box was crammed with junk mail, a few interoffice memos, and a bright orange Post-it from Fran, my boss, that read “Come see me.” The Post-it was attached to a three-week-old death notice on a local pastor, and I tossed both into the trash.
I cleaned out my in-box, then glanced into the editorial pen to see whether any familiar faces were there. A bunch of strangers with graphic tees and colorful hair hunched over the glass desks, their attention on their phones, and the sense that I was working at a legitimate news organization grew fainter. I headed for the elevator and tapped the call button.
“You new here?” A guy with a backward cap and a Lakers jersey stopped beside me and gave a half wave with a Styrofoam coffee cup.
“No.” I tried to swallow the know-it-all look that used to get me beat up in math class but ... come on.New here?I was an original. Hell, I had been here during theTribunepurchase. “I work remotely.”
“Ah, right on.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m Rick. I cover the fantasy football picks.”
His palm was there, unable to avoid. I shifted uncomfortably in my flats, then shook it, trying not to grimace at the contact.
He kept my hand captive and tilted his head, reading the lanyard badge that hung around my neck. “Lillian Smith. Editorial?”
“Yep.” I pulled free and stared at the elevator panel, wondering what was taking so long.
“Written anything I might have read?”
“Not unless you read the obituaries.” He smelled like mustard, and the fact that he was close enough for me to catch the scent proved his violation of my personal space.
He hesitated at my response. “Like, this week’s?”
“Any week.”
“Ohhh ... You’re the celebrity obituaries girl.” Understanding dawned, along with that sympathetic look that had followed me ever since I’d been served with a restraining order.
“I was. Now I’m just the obituary girl. No celebrities.” I smiled to take the bite off the words. According to my husband, I’m still snippy about the demotion.
“Well.” He let the word hang in the air. “Seems like a cool job.”
Oh yes, so cool. I struggled not to roll my eyes at the statement because, after all, it had been. Two years ago, I’d been a favorite of the newspaper’s executive board, the quirky obituary writer who had lunched at the Ivy and chronicled every dead celebrity for the last twenty years. I’d even had the high honor of being asked to speak at Jacob’s middle school career day. When I’d mentioned meeting Janet Jackson for her brother’s obit, the entire auditorium had gasped in awe.
Last year, I hadn’t even been invited to the newspaper’s Christmas party. This loser, in untied tennis shoes and sporting a wallet chain, had probably attended, while I’d spent the evening at Sam’s, downing expensive eggnog and lamenting my downward trajectory in life.
The elevator chimed and I waited as a group stepped off, easing my way around the flow before darting in. The sports guy hesitated, andmaybe my failure carried a stench, because he stayed in place and lifted his coffee cup in parting.
I pulled out my phone in avoidance of a response and opened my Twitter feed, but the hint I’d posted on the way to the office had only two replies.