Stilling my body, I tried to keep up with my racing mind. Because I knew he knew I had hired a private investigator. He knew that I knew he was cheating. So why would he . . .
But then it hit me. This was the test. This was him dipping a foot into the waters. Scott had moved his knight or pawn or whatever—hey, I didn’t play chess—to see what my next move would be.
So what would it be?
I didn’t want to have sex with Scott, but I didn’t want him to know that I knew what I knew. Or did I? Terrifyingly, everything about my marriage hung in the balance with my cheating husband’s hand on my right breast. Did I pretend we were still happy, or did I come clean with what I knew? I didn’t know what to do.
Luckily, at that moment, we heard a horrible yakking sound coming from the direction of Pippa’s dog bed.
“Oh no.” I jerked up and leaped out of bed as Pippa commenced some horrid whompy-whomp sounds.
“Ugh,” Scott groaned, flipping over and turning on the lamp.
But it was too late for the light because my left foot had already registered disgusting, warm dog barf beneath it.
“Oh my God!” I shrieked, making gagging noises myself while hopping on my right foot.
“I’ll grab a towel,” Scott said, climbing from the bed and disappearing into the en suite bathroom.
I lifted my foot, holding it up so I didn’t get any on the rug. Of course, Pippa was still seized up in arched vomit mode, copious amounts of whatever she’d eaten hitting the expensive Turkish wool rug I had tracked down through my most contrary of vendors. I held my breath and tried to quell my own reflexive response to my dog emptying her stomach.
“Here.” Scott thrust one of my white decorative towels at me.
“Not this one. It’s a monogrammed hand towel.”
He gave a huge sigh. “Seriously? Cricket, use the damned towel.”
“Just . . . just . . . just take her out, please.”
Another heavy sigh from my ass of a husband as I hopped on one foot to the bathroom and turned on the bathtub faucet. I could hear Scott in the bedroom, trying to get Pippa out the door. Julia Kate’s voice joined in. I focused on cleaning my foot, and when I emerged from the bathroom, having slathered lotion on my clean foot for good measure, I found Scott back in bed and my monogrammed towel scrunched up over the vomit.
“You didn’t clean it up?”
He glanced up from the magazine he’d plopped onto his lap. “I wasn’t sure how to clean it. Or what cleaner to use.”
I thought about hitting him. I truly did. But then I gathered myself the way my mother had taught me and stalked past him, out the door, and downstairs to where my daughter stood at the back door, no doubt watching over our vomiting Italian greyhound. “Thank you, JK.”
“Poor Pippa. I think she ate some of my washcloth or something. I found it chewed up in the bathroom this afternoon, but I didn’t think she’d actually eaten it.”
I made a grossed-out face and fetched some gentle carpet cleaner from the cabinet beneath the sink. “I guess it’s good she vomited it, then.”
I went back, ignored Scott, and cleaned up the carpet as best I could. Probably needed to get the rugs cleaned, anyway, but those sorts of tasks were low on my priority list. High was the son of a biscuit—okay, fine, son of a bitch—lying in bed, leafing through a golfing magazine. Silently, I rose and started for the door. I stopped. “Pippa is still sick. Think I’ll stay downstairs with her for a while.”
Scott lowered his reading glasses. “So I guess you’re not interested in what we started?”
“I stepped in dog vomit, Scott. And I just cleaned up the rest of it. You think I’m going to straddle you after that?”
He blinked once. Twice. “I think you didn’t need dog vomit as a reason to not straddle me, Cricket.” Then he reached over and turned off the light.
His words hurt, but they were true. Maybe they found their mark, because in those words was the shovel that would bury our marriage. He was right—I had stopped wanting to have sex with him. Some of it was because I was changing—I no longer felt sexy or desirable. Some was probably hormonal. Some was Scott sucking at foreplay, at showing me love before we climbed into bed. Those were all decent reasons, but it didn’t change the fact that he was right . . . and that it had probably started before he’d had the affair.
Though I was livid at the thought of his deception and devastated by the betrayal that had cut me to my very core, I had ignored an issue that should have been addressed. Our marriage bed had long grown cold, and I hadn’t minded it so much. Oh, that didn’t excuse what he’d done. I’d left that door open a crack when I ignored the problem and stopped communicating with my husband. Scott had kicked it open and screwed someone else. Not exactly the best response to our failure to address our issue. Not even close to the best way. I wasn’t responsible for his bad decision, but I was responsible for mine.
I padded back down the stairs to find Julia Kate locking up. “What do you want me to do with Pippa, Mom?”
“You go on to bed. Leave her with me. I have some thank-you notes to catch up on, and I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Pippa slunk toward me, head and tail down in canine apology. Julia Kate gave me a hug and made her way upstairs as I switched on the urn lamp and plumped the couch pillow in the hearth room. Pippa sank down onto her haunches with an elaborate sigh.
I looked down at the dog.
She looked up at me.
“Thank you, Pippa.” I stroked her head and opened the end-table drawer where I kept my thank-you notes.
The next morning as I stood in front of the mirror next to Ruby, looking in awe at the dress she’d made for the gala, I felt that weird clicky feeling you sometimes get when you know something big is about to happen. I had only felt that a few times in my life. Of course, you get it on big days—graduation or when someone slips an engagement ring on your finger. But there are other times when you just know that whatever it is that’s happening, it’s going to change you forever.
That had happened that morning when I’d arrived at Printemps, bleary eyed from a sleepless night on the couch—Pippa had vomited one more time—and heavy because I knew I was about to get my period in a few days, which meant cramps, bloating, and what was possibly a colossal pimple on my chin.
Ruby was rearranging a display up front, and Jade stood behind the checkout desk tapping on her phone. She slid it into her back pocket when she saw me and fastened on a smile. “Morning, Cricket.”
I set a mocha latte on the desk. “Here ya go. Just a little thank-you for holding down the fort while I was under the weather last week.”