Chapter 1 : Part 7

It's About Your Husband
by Lauren Lipton

(Page 7 of 7)

There's no one in the room, but I glance around anyway: Somebody, help! No luck. I frisbee the FedEx envelope onto my bed, bend to remove my belligerent shoe, limp across the hardwood floor into the two-foot-by-three-foot bathroom to rummage under the doll-size sink. "Joy," I say into the receiver. The two beers have done nothing for my verbal skills, even with a thirty-block walk to help sober me up, but on the one or two occasions a year when I accidentally answer one of my mother's phone calls, she does most of the talking anyway. "You're in psychic pain," she says.

I locate a Band-Aid, put it on, and straighten up, examining the tiny crinkles under my eyes in the five-by-seven mirror over my bathroom sink. It occurs to me that I haven't seen myself completely since moving here, except reflected in the odd shop window.

"I'm sensing negative energy," Joy continues. "What are you doing in New York? I called your house, and Teddy said you'd moved out."

I'm going to kill him. My estranged husband, aspiring voice-over artist, eternal pursuer of the big break that never materializes, can barely remember to bring home a carton of milk, take out the garbage, or pay the water bill. He spent the month before I left camping out on a succession of actor-friends' sofas and twice had to call me because he'd forgotten at whose place he was scheduled to stay when. Now, having settled back into our house, he's efficient enough not only to recall where to find the address book but also to accurately relay my new contact information to Joy.

I back out of the bathroom and into the main apartment, where my bedroom furniture, after years of having its own space to itself, now rubs joinery with my living room furniture:

The queen-size bed in which Teddy and I slept is next to the overstuffed armchair we'd squish into to read the Los Angeles Times; my nightstand, in its current dual role as nightstand/ mail table, sits on the rug that was our favorite living-room spot for eating pizza and watching movies. I sit on the bed next to the FedEx envelope and suddenly realize what it is: the court document saying my divorce is on track and will be final in six months, unless one of us tells our lawyer otherwise. I pull on the tab to split open the cardboard sleeve and peek in at the paper on top: "Interlocutory Decree," it affirms in fancy, legal-document lettering. "It's been a strange few months," is all I can think of to say to my mother.

"The candle told me. I came through the meditation room just now and found that the purple taper had wilted. The midday sun must have been unbearable. It's in its holder, slumped over onto the offering table. I thought, It's trying to tell me something."

"Probably," I say. "Something like 'Please, close the curtains.'"

"Iris, the rest of the candles were fine. Only this one had wilted. It is purple, purple as in irises. It symbolizes awareness.

I sense that you are bowed under a psychic burden. Perhaps you'd like me to send you an awareness candle?"

On the street there's a sudden commotion of honking horns. I hold the receiver between my ear and shoulder, open the window, and look out to see two women in business suits, screaming at each other: "It's mine!" "I had it first!" They have unearthed a cache of discarded clothing from one of a dozen black plastic garbage bags heaped on the sidewalk and are blocking the street, playing tug-of-war with what appears to be a men's blazer, each holding a sleeve.

I feel it coming on: the tidal wave of loneliness and desolation that not even happy hour and flippant banter and an amusing potential new career can stave off. And I'm tired. Exhausted, honestly. Ready to cry and then sleep for a hundred years. It's been like this since I got to New York: I feel as if I'm handling things, and then get blindsided by a sadness so deep and wide I could drown in it.

I'm certainly in no mood for Joy. I'll call her some other time, I tell her.

We both know full well I won't, but she lets my excuse go by. "Namaste, then, Iris. That is a yogic word meaning, 'I honor the divine energy within you.'"

But even after I hang up and set the alarm for my early wake-up call and crawl into bed with a take-out carton and the remote, I'm up for most of the night listening to the swoosh of passing traffic, keening sirens, people outside my window on their way home from restaurants and friends' apartments. Thinking, too. A little about tomorrow's assignment, a lot more about my money problems. But mostly reliving a scene that has haunted me far too often. It's an overcast February day in the San Fernando Valley. Fog-shrouded sun shines into my burning eyes. I'm desperate to protect myself from the glare and bury my face in the crook of my arm. What if I had kept it there? What if I hadn't looked up? I wonder as the hours tick by. What would life be like now?

As with so many nights, it's the last thing I remember thinking before finally falling asleep.

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.