Chapter 1 : Part 4

It's About Your Husband
by Lauren Lipton

(Page 4 of 7)

"Oh, forget it!" Vickie starts crying again, with gusto. "This is why I never see you, Val. This is why I hate to tell you anything personal. You have no idea the stress I'm under right now. No idea!" She struggles to free herself from her chair, which is wedged between our table and the back of the woman behind her, and pulls an overnight bag I hadn't noticed before out from under her seat. "I'll wait for my train on the platform."

I realize how heartless I've been acting. Val must feel equally bad, because she grabs her sister's mascara-and-cashmere- covered wrist. "Where are you going?" She sounds contrite. "To Greenwich," Vickie says. "I want Mother and Daddy."

"Don't you think you ought to stick around here and-Iris, how do you say it?-work on your marriage?" "Work on your marriage," I repeat somberly.

"No." Vickie starts to gather up the rest of her packages. Not an easy feat, since the lot of them is taking up as much cubic footage as my entire apartment. The couple at the table next to us ducks to avoid being B-headed by a Bloomingdale's Big Brown Bag. "I should hire myself a detective to catch him in the act, and then use the evidence to stick him for a big, fat divorce settlement."

I could tell her, because I know, that she's oversimplifying things. In the no-fault-community-property-divorce state of California, for example, your assets get divided right down the middle, regardless of who did what to whom, unless you were cynical enough to draw up a prenuptial agreement. I could tell her, but I keep my mouth shut.

"Here's a plan!" Val pipes up. "While you're gone, want me to keep an eye on him? I could follow him around and see where he goes. I could be your scheming lookalike hiding in the bushes!"

"That's brilliant, Val. He'll never notice you. Make sure you wear that exact outfit."

Maybe Val hasn't been exaggerating about her twin. Whether or not Steve is the cad Vickie seems to think he is, he can't have it easy being married to her. Still, I have a real problem with cheaters. I know exactly what infidelity can do to a person.

Then it comes to me in a Joan of Arc moment, like a celestial omen from Grand Central's soaring signs-of-the-zodiac ceiling. I have no job and nothing to do. I have no social life. I barely have a love life. I have exactly one friend in this city: Val. And I'm broke. "Vickie!" I practically shout. "Hire me to do it!"

In the weeks to come, the foolishness of this idea will become so clear I'll wonder why some sort of actual winged messenger didn't appear-to grab me and smack some sense into me. At the moment, with a little alcohol in my system, and a thousand commuters bustling to and fro on the floor below, I'm picturing myself in an office with a frosted-glass door, smartly dressed in a suit (peplum, shoulder pads, brooch), feet up on my circa 1945 standard-issue metal desk, answering my old-fashioned dial phone: "Iris Hedge, dogcatcher." For some reason, the image is in black-and-white.

Val, too, seems to have caught the fever. "Iris would be perfect! See how unobtrusive she is? She looks exactly like every other woman in America! She could follow him around all day, and he'd never notice."

"She's right," I add. "Just tell me when to come over in the morning. In one day, you'll know whether he's telling the truth or not."

Vickie wrinkles her nose. "How?" "Come on. Think about it." Val is Hayes Heeley's youth expert, specializing in focus groups for teenagers. Right now she is using exactly the same casually jolly voice I've heard her use while passing around samples of pimple cream to a roomful of sulky eighth-grade goths. "She waits for him to come out of the building. She follows behind him on his, you know, morning rounds. If he is going running, then she'll just get in her workout for the day. If he's not, you'll have your answer, once and for all."

An incomprehensible message, the departure of the something-o'clock train to Staticville on track mumble, crackles over Grand Central's public address system. Vickie consults her Rolex. "That's my train."

"I have to go, too." With no small amount of difficulty, Val pushes back her chair. "You don't mind cutting this short, do you, Iris? I'm meeting someone. He's a musician. Really cute. We met on the subway."

"You did not." Vickie looks horrified. "He could be anyone! What do you know about him?"

"That he gets on at Fourteenth Street and has great tattoos," Val says. "And his name is Ian, or Liam-something. Anyway I only just met him this morning."

"Oh, my god! And you're going out with him already? Don't you know no man will ever marry you if you aren't at least a little hard to get?"

Copyright © 2006 by Lauren Lipton

About the Author

Lauren Lipton is a deputy editor at Cosmopolitan. Previously she was a senior editor at In Style and a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, where for the popular Weekend Journal section she reported on supersize engagement rings, copycat brides who steal their friends' wedding ideas, and luxury homes with his-and-hers garages. Her work has also appeared in publications including Glamour and Marie Claire and on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. She began her career as a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, covering television and lifestyle trends.