The Switch

“He’s never home. He forgave me about my car too easily. Did you see the crane he’s got in the backyard? He and Phil are using it to shoot a commercial. Daddy told them to.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mildred murmured.

“Mom, don’t you see? Next he’ll even let me drive Beautiful Baby. Something is definitely wrong. And … people are saying they saw us out together. But it’s always some place I haven’t been to.”

Mildred, her heart beginning to flutter in her chest, forced herself to take on the practical aspect that Angela Lansbury used in Murder, She Wrote. “That’s nothing. Circumstantial,” she said dismissively. “You still haven’t given me anything definitive.”

Sylvie burst into tears. “He’s gotten a pedicure.”

“A pedicure! My god!” Mildred took her daughter into her arms. Sylvie wasn’t just paranoid. “Was it a professional pedicure?” Mildred asked, giving her son-in-law the benefit of the doubt.

Sylvie nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He’s been stabbing me with those pointy, deadly, fungoid toenails for twenty-one years. And now, just when he’s ignoring me, they’re short and shell pink.”

“He had a professional pedicure?” Mildred repeated, outraged. “He was dying to get caught,” she muttered.

Sylvie began crying on Mildred’s shoulder. “I know he’s sleeping with a younger woman.”

Mildred rocked Sylvie in her arms, but managed to shrug. “Of course it’s a younger woman! Do you think men cheat on their wives because they miss their grandmothers?” Mildred glanced toward her husband. Jim was still in the living room and the GIs were still eating lead on the beach. He was entranced. If a sociopath with a can of acid and a butcher knife had been at the door, Mildred would be blinded and gutted at this very moment while Jim waited for a commercial break to channel surf. Men! What were they good for? “It’s your daughter,” Mildred called out to him.

“Hi, honey. Want to watch the Nazis?” Jim called back, his eyes still glued to the screen.

“No, dear. We’re going to have a little chat instead,” Mildred told him. She wasn’t sure if he heard or not, but since he didn’t move she figured he didn’t need any further communiqués from the front. Mildred took her daughter’s arm and led her upstairs.

“Where are we going?” Sylvie asked, still wiping at her eyes with her hands, just the way she’d done when she was small.

“To cry our eyes out for two hours. You’re getting into bed and I’m bringing you a heating pad. Then we’ll talk.” Mildred led her into the bedroom, made her sit on the bed, then knelt and took off Sylvie’s shoes. “Lie down,” she said, and Sylvie did. Mildred drew the chenille spread up over her and tucked it under her shoulders, just the way she liked it.

Sylvie awoke in her old canopy bed. Everything in the room was dated: teenager circa 1967. The house was a big one, and Mildred had left the children’s rooms just as they had been. There was a shelf of Barbie dolls still on display and a blue Princess phone. The light was fading outside. Mildred was sitting in the dimness on the bed beside Sylvie, who sat up slowly and stretched. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Time to stop dealing with suspicion and start looking for facts,” Mildred told her.

“Is the crane gone?”

“The crane, your car, your brother, and Bob. They’re all wet and they’re all gone,” Mildred said. “The coast, as they say, is clear.”

Sylvie threw-the blankets off and stood up.

“Where are you going?” Mildred asked.

“Next door. Back home. I have some research to do.”

Sylvie was sitting in the dimness of her dining room ensconced behind Bob’s desk. In all their years of marriage, she’d never even glanced at open mail on it. Now every pigeonhole and drawer was emptied. She’d even lifted up the blotter, to look under it. She had bits of papers, cards, and receipts spread out around her on the desk top and the dining room table. It had grown dark outside but Sylvie hadn’t bothered to turn on the lamp. She didn’t need to survey any more of this. What she had in front of her was not just a paper trail of betrayal but a sort of First-Time-Do-It-Yourself-Adultery-Kit. Her hands were shaking, but she hoped she had the strength to shoot Bob when he came in the door—if only she had a bullet. Or a gun to shoot it with.

She wouldn’t aim for the heart or the head—she was enraged but not deranged. She didn’t want to go to prison. She would only shoot him in the legs, both of them. Then he’d hurt a little bit, but not the way she did. After he bled and cried for a while, he could drag himself behind her to his damn car and she’d drive it while he bled all over the upholstery. They could go to John, who would discreetly take out the bullets. After that, she’d leave Bob. Maybe she’d start her life over in Vermont with Reenie or alone in New Mexico. She had always wanted to see the desert. A nice adobe house, tumbleweed, and a dog. No, two dogs. Golden retrievers, and both of them female. She’d do a Georgia O’Keeffe thing and maybe, when she was ninety, some young man would come to her, too, and she’d be ready to try again. But not before.

Sylvie got up and went through the darkened hall to her music room—the only place where she could find comfort. In the darkness she sat down at her piano and began to play. The liquid glissando of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 filled the room. She’d played this piece at Juilliard, for a recital. Bob had been there. She remembered his face as he’d congratulated her afterward. They’d made love for the first time that night. He’d adored her then. She’d played well, but now—alone in the darkness—she knew she played better. Her fingers fumbled a few times, but her feeling, her timing, and the heart of the music was better, truer.

When she heard the door open she started, dropping her hands. The shock of hearing the music ending abruptly gave her the energy to turn around to face her husband. She felt her heart thump painfully against her breastbone. But it was only Mildred, standing there in the music room doorway, carrying a sandwich on a plate.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” Mildred said. “You have to keep up your strength.” Sylvie turned on the lamp, wordlessly stood up, took her mother by the hand, and led her down the hallway. At the dining room door Mildred surveyed the room, took in an audible breath, and put the sandwich down on the other end of the cluttered dining room table.

“You want proof?” Sylvie asked. “I have it. In spades.”

“So you don’t want the sandwich. You want a pistol,” Mildred said. “Where’s Bob now?” she asked, picking up one of the pieces from exhibit A.

“He left a message. Supposedly he’s working late and then going to a special Masons meeting tonight. But there is no special meeting. I checked with Burt Silver’s wife. And there was no Masons’ meeting yesterday.” Sylvie sat back down at the desk. “I knew something was different,” she said. “It wasn’t just the usual, routine, taking-me-for-granted Bob. It was the new, improved, making-a-fool-of-me-cheating Bob.” Sylvie lifted up a crumpled slip of paper. “Look at this,” she said.

Mildred crossed the room and took the receipt. She scrunched up her eyes and held the bit of paper out but still couldn’t read it without her glasses. “What is it?” she asked.

“An American Express receipt from Weiner’s Jewelry.”

“That thief. You shop there?”

“I don’t. I don’t buy jewelry. But somebody bought a necklace there.” Sylvie’s voice became high with sarcasm. “Who could it be? Wait! Look! The receipt was signed by Bob.” She turned away from her mother.

“Maybe it was a pair of cuff links. You know how he likes cuff links.”

Wordlessly, Sylvie handed her the store sales record. “No cuff links,” she said. “A necklace. And trust me, Bob hasn’t worn beads since college.”

Mildred looked at the transaction record and then looked at her daughter. She sat down heavily at the head of the table. In Bob’s chair. “Maybe the necklace is for you. For your birthday.”

“I got my present. Remember?”

“Well, it could be for Reenie. When she comes home for Thanksgiving.”

“Don’t try and justify my husband’s actions,” Sylvie said. “It was sent to an M. Molensky.”

“M. Molensky? Is that the name of a girlfriend?” Mildred asked. “Sounds like an accountant.”

Silently, Sylvie handed Mildred another receipt. “Save your breath. Read it and weep.”

“Switzer’s?” Sylvie nodded, put her hand to her mouth, and stifled a sob.

Mildred made her way over to her daughter, the final proof of her son-in-law’s infidelity still clutched in her hand. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry …” Mildred looked down and whistled at the amount at the bottom of the bill of sale. “We’re talking some serious lingerie,” she said.

Sylvie was crying full force by now. “And I wear cotton panties I buy myself,” she sobbed.

Mildred sighed. “Don’t men know anything about discount malls?” she asked. She stroked her daughter’s hair. “One of the main differences between men and women is that we brag about how little we paid for something. They brag about how much.”

“That’s not one of the main differences,” Sylvie said grimly. She gestured to the papers and cards. “Women wouldn’t be so dumb as to make calls to their lovers in Cleveland from their home in Shaker Heights. And that’s not all, Mom. When I went through the American Express bills there were dinners, lots of them. No wonder people said they saw me around town. They were expensive too. And he tipped twenty-five percent.”

Mildred nodded her head. “A dead giveaway. Men tip big to make up for other things that might not be.” Mildred lifted two other receipts. “So you didn’t go to Vico’s?”

“No. But Rosalie thinks I did.”

“What was she doing there, anyway?” Mildred wondered.

“She’s dating some guy with nine toes. He probably took her. Anyway, are you convinced?” Sylvie asked.