It had not exactly worked out that way.
Rebecca sighed, cast a faint sneer at the shiny doors of the Fleming and Fleming Employment Agency, and recalled how Marianne Rinebergen, the less than helpful employment associate, had kindly suggested she take a class or two before seeking employment. “It will help qualify you for, ah . . . positions.” And then she had smiled very sympathetically.
Rebecca had wanted to reach across the desk and rub that sympathetic smile from her face, but because she was always so unfailingly polite she walked away, wondering if there was anything on this planet she could do. In something of a fog, she had continued on across the street to the lovely capitol grounds, exchanged a greeting with a smiling state trooper who stood at the gates, and plopped down on one of the wrought iron park benches that lined the walks.
And there she almost gave in to the feeling of despair until she recalled what her self-help book Surviving Divorce: A Woman’s Path to Starting Over said about pity parties: Poison! Concoct antidote immediately and recite three positive things about YOU! So Rebecca smoothed her hair, adjusted her jacket, and folded her hands in her lap.
Hmm . . . okay, it was a reach, but here was something positive: She knew it was over with Bud for at least two years before it actually ended, which meant she wasn’t a total loser. She even managed to think this with only a slight roll of her eyes. It was amazing to think two people who had once been so madly in love could somehow come to loathe each other, but that was exactly what she’d felt for so long that it was almost a relief when Bud had made his grand announcement. (Not that she wanted to think about the loathing too terribly hard, because it always made her wonder why she hadn’t ended it much sooner herself, and that was a dark and slippery little slope, wasn’t it?)
Moving on to Positive Thing Number Two: She stood her ground during the divorce and did not let Bud railroad her. Sort of. Okay, the truth was that in spite of being the heir to the Reynolds Chevrolet and Cadillac dealership dynasty, apparently Bud was so glad to be done with their fifteen-year history that he gave her pretty much whatever her lawyer demanded, which was: the lake house (and if she never went back to Dallas again, it would be too soon, thank you); generous child support (guilt money to make up for his lack of visitation with Grayson); the Range Rover (because he had always hated it); her jewelry and personal articles (because he had no idea what they were). And then something about an equitable splitting of mutual assets, blah-dee blah blah bleck.
Could she really count that as a positive thing? Because by the time the Big Divorce Moment rolled around, Rebecca had been dead inside for so long that she had lost all interest and had wanted nothing more than to get away from Bud, their Turtle Creek mansion, and their friends, who, she had inadvertently discovered, had already become well acquainted with the soon-to-be Mrs. Reynolds the Second. Women she had once thought were her friends had dropped off like so many flies, ending with Ruth, who said, “Sorry, honey, but you know Bud and Richard are tight. I have to go along to get along.” And then she proceeded to throw a very posh dinner party welcoming Mrs. Reynolds the Second into their fold.
That was when Mrs. Reynolds the First ceased to care, which infuriated her attorney, selected for her by her father, naturally. “He’s a rich man!” her father had shouted at her in a fit of frustration one afternoon. “Everyone knows him! He’s on the goddamn radio or TV probably fifty times a day for those stupid cars, and you’re not going to take advantage of that? Do you know what he’d give to keep this out of the public eye? What are you going to do, depend on your beauty queen titles to feed you? Go for the jugular! Demand alimony!”
At the end of his rant, Rebecca had politely but firmly declined. She did not want Bud’s money. She had just wanted to cast off all the nasty trappings and the life with Bud like a larva and become a butterfly. She had wanted to start over, to become a better person, a better mother, daughter, sister—someone who was not so stiflingly perfect and neatly arranged. And because she had been so unhappy and so uncommonly bored for so long, when her Partners in Transformation suggested starting over in Austin, she saw the brilliance in their thinking—it would be startlingly invigorating.