Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

Grace slid into the chair beside hers. “Suzanne? That was really wonderful, what you wrote. I think all of us saw something of ourselves in what you’ve gone through.”

Suzanne brightened, just a little. “So, you don’t think I’m the queen of crazypants?”

“You? Nah. That title belongs to Ashleigh,” Grace said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small pink nose pop out of the top of her tote bag. “Oh, Lord,” she breathed. “I’ve gotta go outside for a minute. So—will you come to the Sandbox tonight, after? Just for a little while? At least so we can discuss what’s up with Paula?”

Suzanne brightened. “So, it’s not just me? There is definitely something weird about her. Weirder than usual tonight, because she’s actually acting normal! About the Sandbox, I’d come, but it’s just such a long way there and then home again.”

“If you like, you can leave your car here and ride over there with me,” Grace offered. “I’m sure one of the others will give you a ride back afterward.”

“Maybe,” Suzanne said. “Let me think about it, okay?”

*   *   *

“Friends,” Paula began, once their break was over, her face flushed with excitement. “I didn’t want to announce this earlier, because, well, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. But I got a message just before our break, and it appears that we are going to have a guest joining us tonight. I, for one, am incredibly honored that he’s taking time out from his very busy life to be with us.” She glanced down at her watch and, then again, at her cell phone.

She took a deep breath. “I’m sure he’ll be along shortly. In the meantime, I’d like us to think about options.” She looked around the room. “From what you’ve told me, all of you feel you’ve been badly hurt by your spouses. Of course, since we don’t have your partners here with us, I only have your version of events that led to your breakups.”

Camryn snorted. “We’re the ones got ordered to be here, Paula. If you want Dexter Nobles’s version of what happened, feel free to drag his ass in here.”

“Camryn?” Paula frowned at her. “Sharing time is over. Now. All of you have spoken of your feelings of powerlessness and inferiority. Now, I’d like you to explore what options you have, going forward with your lives.”

A man cleared his throat. All heads swung in the direction of the reception-room door. “Er, hello?”

Paula jumped up from her chair and clapped her hands in glee. “Judge Stackpole! Your Honor, we’re so glad you could be here!”

24

Judge Cedric N. Stackpole Jr. was dressed in his version of business casual and Grace’s idea of what not to wear to divorce therapy. A black short-sleeved knit shirt with the top button fastened—although Grace saw the glimmer of a thick gold chain resting amidst a tuft of chest hair sticking out over the top button. Very shiny, very faux-distressed, very obviously brand-new jeans, belted and worn navel-high. Highly polished black slip-ons, no socks.

His thinning reddish hair was slicked back with some type of hair product that he’d obviously bought in bulk in the eighties.

He nodded curtly at the group, and cracked something similar to a smile at Paula.

“Hello, hello,” he said briskly, his hands thrust awkwardly in his jeans pockets. “Uh, Dr. Talbott-Sinclair invited me to drop in tonight, just to see how everybody is doing. Er, uh, I hope you are all listening closely to her message. Because, uh, if more people like you all came to sessions with therapists like Dr. Talbott-Sinclair, there’d be lots less work for judges like me.” He seemed to think this was a hysterically funny line. “Right?” he asked. “Judges might not have jobs. Right?”

Paula’s laughter trilled up and down the musical scales. “That’s right!” she said, clasping her hands. “Very intuitive, Your Honor.”

Grace didn’t dare cut her eyes sideways to the left to see Camryn’s reaction to this. Instead, she pretended to study the journal on her lap. Through lowered eyelashes, she could see Wyatt, on her right, his arms folded across his chest, glaring directly at the judge, barely disguised hostility emanating from every pore.

“Well,” Stackpole said, “please don’t let me interrupt. I’ll just sit here in the back of the room, and you all go on as though I weren’t here.”

Like that’s gonna happen, Grace thought. She glanced nervously down at her tote bag, but for now it was very still.

*   *   *

Paula stood and faced the group. Her hair was neatly combed, and Grace noticed she’d reapplied her lipstick and powdered her nose during the break. And was the neckline of her dress tugged just a little lower? Showing just a hint of cleavage that hadn’t been visible before?

“Most of you are here because in the heat of the moment or, perhaps, after some very deliberate but ill-thought-out reasoning, you decided to strike out—violently, publicly, even criminally, against your spouse. Probably, you reasoned, ‘this person has hurt me, and my only option is to strike back.’” She nodded at Grace.

“Isn’t that right, Grace?”

“No,” Grace heard herself say. “That isn’t what happened at all.”

Paula gave her a patronizing smile. “We’ll come back to that.”

“What I’m trying to say,” Paula went on, “is that whether you know it or not, you had options at the time you acted out, and you have options now. Do you stay, or do you leave? Forgive? Forget? Neither?”

“Huh.” Wyatt shook his head. “That ship has sailed, Paula.”

“Yeah,” Camryn put in. “I already left, or rather, I kicked his butt out the door. You want me to forget? How do I erase the image of him in bed with my twenty-two-year-old daughter’s best friend? I wish I could forget it,” she said, throwing up her hands in surrender. “What’s that drug they used to give women during childbirth? Scopolamine, yeah, the twilight drug. You feel the labor pains, but after, you have no memory of the pain. You tell me how to find