And One Last Thing Novel – My husband was having an affair. They were going at it in front of a huge window, apparently not caring who could pass by and see. H-ll, his wife was sitting less than twelve feet away from them and they hadn’t noticed me. A whimper stuck in my throat, gagging me. How long had they been doing this? They wouldn’t close around the door handle so I could march into the office and toss the vase at their heads. I took a few deep steadying breaths, but instead of opening the door, my hands put the car in gear and steered toward home. I ran into the grass, doubled over, and threw up until tears and mucus hung in long threads from my face. How could he cheat on me? I was the stupidest woman on the planet. I will make them pay the price! I promise.
My husband was having an affair. If Singletree’s only florist didn’t deliver her posies half-drunk, I might still be married to that floor-licking, scum-sucking, receptionist-nailing hack-accountant, Mike Terwilliger. To put this all in perspective, I’ll take you back to that fateful Wednesday morning, when Cherry, stinking of plant food and blackberry schnapps, ambled up to my front steps with the biggest, gaudiest arrangement of peachy-orangish roses I had ever seen. The card read, “To my BumbleBee, Happy Anniversary, With all my love, The Stinger.” “The Stinger?” I read aloud, checking the name on the envelope. Sure enough, the card was addressed to “BumbleBee.” Mike had never called me that. In fact, in eight years together, Mike had never given me a nickname. And it was nowhere near our anniversary. We got married on August 1, not in the second week of June.
“Cherry, honey, I think you got this delivery wrong!” I called, chasing after her with the floral albatross. Cherry lived perpetually south of buzzed, just drunk enough to avoid thinking about the fact that she’d been married to a very handsome, asexual man for twenty years, but not too drunk to drive her delivery van. She looked over her delivery list and muttered to herself. “Nope, it’s right,” she slurred. “Right here, it’s says ‘Rose Romance Special Deluxe’ from Mike Terwilliger to . . . oh. This is supposed to go somewhere else. This is supposed to go here.” She took an envelope out of her back pocket and handed it to me. She swayed slightly against her van and shook her head. “Wait, no, both of them are supposed to go . . .” “W-where are they supposed to go, Cherry?” I stuttered. “Um . . .” Cherry looked away from me, her eyes not quite able to focus anyway. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I snapped and tore the billing envelope open. Mike was listed as the ordering party. Next to “Rose Romance Special Deluxe” Cherry’s assistant had scribbled “Terwilliger-Office.” My stomach clenched, ice cold.
Somewhere, in a rationalizing corner of my brain, I clung to the hope that maybe Mike was planning to bring those roses home to me this afternoon as a surprise . . . and that he was planning on giving me the nickname “BumbleBee.” Oh, God. My husband was having an affair. With a woman who called him “The Stinger.” And that’s when it hit me. BumbleBee. Mike’s receptionist was named Beebee Baumgardner. “Sorry, Lacey, I’m so sorry,” Cherry murmured, climbing into the van. She knew. Soused, silly Cherry Glick had figured out my husband was having an affair before I had. Oblivious to the fact that my front door was standing open, I tugged my keys out of my pocket and ran for my Volvo. I tossed the roses into the passenger seat and, for some reason, took the time to secure the vase with the seat belt. Lots of people give their secretaries affectionate shoulder squeezes, I told myself, watching after he crossed the room to rub his hands under her blouse, across her b-re collarbone. It was borderline inappropriate, but not an indicator of an affair. And lots of people drag their secretaries out of their chairs like a character in a tacky romance novel. Lots of people k-ss their secretaries . . . with tongue.
Especially when they’re having an affair with them. Sweet merciful cr-p, they were going at it in front of a huge window, apparently not caring who could pass by and see. H-ll, his wife was sitting less than twelve feet away from them and they hadn’t noticed me. A whimper stuck in my throat, gagging me. How long had they been doing this? Who else had seen them? Who else knew? How many people would be chewing this over with their dinner tonight? My hands didn’t seem to work right. They wouldn’t close around the door handle so I could march into the office and toss the vase at their heads. I took a few deep steadying breaths, but instead of opening the door, my hands put the car in gear and steered toward home. I ran into the grass, doubled over, and threw up until tears and mucus hung in long threads from my face. I fell on my knees and waited for the second wave. “Lacey, you all right, honey?” Our neighbor, Mrs. Revell, yelled from her yard. She gave me a knowing wink. “Ginger tea and saltines help with that.” Mrs. Revell thought I was pregnant. Great. By the time Mrs. Revell stopped making calls, not only would I be poor Lacey Terwilliger whose husband had the bad taste to have an affair with his secretary, I would be poor Lacey Terwilliger, whose husband had the bad taste to have an affair with his secretary after he knocked up his unsuspecting moron wife.
Every women’s magazine I’ve ever read says there are five signs a man is cheating on you. All married women, h-ll, all women in a committed relationship, know them by heart. Repeat them, if you will, ladies. Diminished sexual appetite. Finding reasons to work late. Cutting you off from his communications—leaving the room when his cell phone rings or changing an e-mail password without explanation. Unexplained charges on the credit cards. Finding fault with you because it makes him feel justified in cheating. As I was vomiting on the lawn, this list of cheating signs bounced through my head like a Buddhist chant. With more purpose than I could fathom, I cleaned up the car mess and ran into the home office. Mike and I had separate e-mail accounts, again for business reasons. When I logged on to the quickmail.c-m server, believe it or not, he was dumb enough to have left thestinger@quickmail.c-m in the user box and checked “Remember this address.” Mike’s e-mail password had always been a combination of my phone number from college and my middle name: 6410agnes.
But it was not working. I tried it three times and made sure the capslock was off. The son of a b-tch had changed his password. Honestly, where was the trust? I tried combinations of his birthday, his middle name, my birthday, the street we lived on, our wedding anniversary. Nothing. Finally I tried “Bumblebee.” “Please tell me this isn’t it,” I muttered. “Welcome!” the monitor yelled, showing me a list of Mike’s new messages. I thunked my head onthe desk and sobbed, “D-mn it!” Mike and Beebee must have had complete confidence that I was far too stupid to figure out Mike’s new password, because his in-box was a treasure trove of divorce court exhibits. First up, we had several digital photos of Beebee, who was apparently very proud of her recent purchase of lingerie and her new tattoo. Her poses were enthusiastic and . . . detailed. Then there were several messages outlining their plans to meet at the Royal Inn outside town on nights when Mike was supposedly meeting with clients or attending dinners with the Rotary Club. Other postrendezvous mash notes described what they’d done, where they’d done it, and how good it felt. One charming missive detailed the night Mike returned late from a romp with Beebee and slipped into bed with me, reeking of her perfume. The phrase “She doesn’t suspect a thing” was repeated enough to prompt another vomiting run. Well, at least he’d left a paper trail.
I managed to keep it together enough to print out copies of everything and hide them in the bathroom drawer where I kept my feminine supplies. Mike was almost clinically phobic of Tampax. I also forwarded the entire contents of his in-box to my own e-mail address. Including the pictures. That done, I ran for the newly retiled comfort of our shower and huddled there, the spray burning needles into my numb skin until the hot water ran out. Waterlogged and shivering, I bundled into my ratty old blue robe and crawled under the covers. I just couldn’t seem to warm up. It felt like life had thrown a pie right in my face. And that pie was full of bricks. How could he cheat on me? Was Beebee his first . . . was “girlfriend” the right word? Had there been others? Did he even think about how this might make me feel, or was I even a consideration before he unzipped his pants? I was the stupidest woman on the planet. But I will never let them go easily, I will make them pay the price! I promise.