I love my wife. That is, of course, I love Sydney. Sydney's wonderful, she's amazing, you know Sydney. But Rosalyn, my ex-wife—okay, I love her too. What can I say, the heart's not one of those computer-machines that just boops and beeps. It sings, it makes its own music, and I never quite could stop seeing all the great things about Rosalyn I fell in love with. And I'm especially not one of those guys, two or three ex-wives and every one of them supposedly a cunt, whining about paying child support, what a bunch of schmucks. No. We've had our differences, but Rosalyn, she's a peach.
Maybe... more like a volcano. From a distance, all you see is the majesty and the glory of nature, and you know in time all that ash and lava is gonna seep into the soil and make all sorts of flowers grow. It's great. Ya gotta love that kinda business. Then up close—you're running for your life, praying you don't die from being set on fire. And when the lava's just a metaphor, I suppose it just counts as... interesting.
Only she was dating a mobster named Pete Musane with the Meyer Lansky crime family, so the lava was really a metaphor for dying some other, hopefully less painful way.
He should've known she was coming from the cab. It overshot pulling up to the curb, one tire lurching up onto the sidewalk. Irving knew Rosalyn wasn't driving, but she was just a magnet for that kind of fuck-up. She'd married him, after all.
Out came the woman herself, dressed in a gingham/tie combo blouse that changed patterns on the cuffs, the sleeves, the lapels. She could've been wearing a kaleidoscope almost. Thankfully for his odds of developing cataracts, her pants were simple white slacks and her shoes were Hollandia platform wedges.
The second she was on her feet, out came a lighter and Marlboro, out from her purse like she was a gunslinger pulling six-shooters. "Irving, baby, I couldn't smoke in the cab. What's the country coming to when you can't smoke in a cab you hire? It's my dime, I need to smoke—honestly, I should just start riding a bike everywhere. Who'd be laughing then, all the cab companies out of business? Me! Me and my toned calves."
There Irving had been, out on his porch in a plastic lawn chair that wasn't too comfortable, but was just comfortable enough to make him too lazy to go elsewhere. He'd been drinking a pretty nice Orange Julius from a antique sherry copita he'd bought at a great price from a secondhand store, and there was a good splash of white rum in it to keep things copacetic. He'd always thought that too much alcohol could ruin the nice groovy flavor an Orange Julius strove for, but this one had just the right amount. Now that he was semi-retired, mastering things like the right amount of alcohol in something was becoming important to him.
Then he saw Rosalyn and, Irving could've sworn, he knew how dogs felt when they sensed earthquakes. He felt like barking up a storm. His heart was beating faster too, because as ridiculous as that top was, it was pretty tight and the pants were even tighter. She was so beautiful she gave him heartburn. If only he'd told that to her on their honeymoon, it would've gone much better.
He talked like he was trying to swallow peanut butter. "Rosie—Rosalyn. What are you doing here? It's still our week with Danny." The kid was out with Sydney. Small favors.
"Thank Christ for that," Rosalyn said, stomping across the yard. It really worried him when they both agreed on something. "I don't want him to see me like this. My make-up's a mess, Irving. I've been crying."
"Your make-up looks fine."
But talking with Rosalyn was like trying to stop a boulder from rolling downhill. Once it got started. "You were right about Pete. I don't say that often enough, but you were so right. He was a total jerk, complete asshole, he bamboozled me, Irv. Made me think he was a sweet, caring guy like you but that MOTHERFUCKER has no class, no taste, no redeeming qualities, I must've mixed up my pills to see anything in that COCKSUCKER!"
"Honey, we've got neighbors," Irving pleaded.
Try to get in the way of a boulder rolling downhill and: "What do you care, divorcee living with some loose woman, not even an American, and a kid who's not even yours. You think they don't gossip? You bet those motherfuckers gossip. Probably think you stole Danny. Have the police been around asking about him?"
Before Irving could catch up with every last sentence of that, the cabbie honked his horn. "Hey!" he called, leaning out the window. "She say you pay when we get here!"
"I've got it," she assured him. "I just need five bucks. And you'll get my bags from the trunk? It's only fair, I loaded them in. Me and the driver. And he wouldn't let me smoke!" Rosalyn growled.
Irving dug into his corduroys for a crinkled five dollar bill, which came out to be snatched from his hands by Rosalyn. She marched back to the cab, Irving trailing after her.
"You know what that bastard Pete Musane did? He was a fucking pervert, that's what. Fucking dirty movies and he wanted to take pictures of me in—things. He even almost put his thumb up my ass. You're a sick fuck, Irving, I don't mean that, but he makes you look like Prince fucking Charming." She leaned into the cab. "Pop the hood! Can't you see he's getting my bags?" And she slapped the money down on the passenger seat. Her train of thought finished chugging up a hill and came down the slope. "Honestly, Pete Musane, probably involved in some kind of Satanic cult like on the news, it would not surprise me at all. Trying to lure me into some kind of sexual human sacrifice like those people do. You should be damn glad I made it out of there alive. Danny could be half an orphan right now if it weren't for my women's intuition. C'mon, hurry up with the bags, I need you to comfort me."
Irving realized he was still holding his Orange Julius when she plucked it out of his hand and took a sip. "Yeah, just like this. Make me another one of these. I'll get the door for you, too." She went to the front door of his and Sydney's home, drink in hand.
He got the bags. It took four trips. The cabbie did not help. Irving took one of his heart pills.
***
I suppose I always saw Rosalyn Rosenfeld as something of a cancer. No, that's too mean. I meant it in the sense that a tumor can be benign, and that you don't judge people for having them. I never saw Irving as cheating on me with Rosalyn, or what he and I had as him cheating on her. Duplicitous, I suppose. But I simply considered Irving as having this sort of medical condition—or mental illness—of a wife and adopted son, and the same way you'd support someone with a fear of heights, I put up with him having—a wife and adopted son.
Strangely enough, I never really hated Rosalyn either. It was more that I assumed all the irritation Irving felt toward her and couldn't get out. It wasn't like one of those noir films where a woman wants to bump off her husband or something so she can be with her lover. I just wanted a decent excuse to slap her. Just once.
When she came home from work, Sydney felt like a different person. At the art gallery, she knew she belonged, knew she was legitimate, but there was a voice in her head with an English accent. It told her she didn't. It told her she was a fraud. Dirt-poor girl from Minnesota. She came home to a beautiful house and a loving husband and a good kid, she knew the voice was full of shit.
Except that day. That day, Rosalyn Rosenfeld was in her house, hanging up crystals like the place needed wind chimes inside. "These," she was telling Danny, "are quartz crystals, very powerful. Everyone used to use them, the Chinese, the Indians, the Hawaiians, until the white man came and told everyone that needles worked better. Who likes needles? Except in acupuncture. Anyway, once we have them all around the house, they're gonna create an energy grid of healing power—"
"I can explain," Irving said behind her.
Sydney turned and took a deep breath. "I'm not angry."
"No, you're a rational, calm, beautiful woman who knows there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this."
She nodded. "Yes. A patient woman. See how patient I'm being? Waiting for that very reasonable explanation?"
