Chapter Nine
I pick up Ethan from school that afternoon, since it’s my turn to have him for a few days.
“Want to go see some dinosaurs?”
“Rawr!” is his answer, and we head to the Museum of Natural History.
“Should I write a song about dinosaurs?” I ask as we check out the Tyrannosaurus Rex that we’re both sure comes alive at night, just as it did in one of our favorite movies.
“Yeah! Write about triceratops. Those are cool!”
“What else?” We head over to the Giant Whales exhibit, where Ethan stares, goggle-eyed, at the massive blue whale. “If you could write a song about anything, what would it be?”
He screws up his features in a thoughtful expression. “You should write about carbon. Because we still have to fight carbon. Did you know we’re trying to defeat carbon just like Voldemort,” Ethan says seriously, looking at me as he tugs my hand and pulls me over to a replica of a whale heart that we can crawl through. “But you can’t defeat carbon because it keeps being made. But you have to try.”
I laugh as we head into the aorta. “I guess you’re still in the middle of that global-warming unit at school.”
I spend the rest of the week with my boy, taking him to and from school, using all of Jeremy’s clubs, and finishing “Mixed Messages,” even though Ethan tells me I should write about whales, naval ships, and Egyptian warriors. But the fact that I managed to write a song gives me the confidence that I can do the story with Matthew. And not just because he sends the most fantastic e-mails, but because I actually have the primordial makings of what everyone’s been asking for—what’s next.
As I get ready to return Ethan to his dad, my phone buzzes with an e-mail. My mouth waters when I see Matthew’s personal e-mail address pop up.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
time: 3:03 PM
subject: Distractions
Do you have any idea how hard it was to focus on The Black Keys earlier this week?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
time: 3:04 PM
subject: Innuendo
How hard was it?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
time: 3:05 PM
subject: Yes.
Extremely.
I close the e-mail, and wipe the stupid smile off my face, and the sexy images from my brain.
“Time to go see your dad,” I tell Ethan, and we’re off to Bloom’s Books on Lexington Avenue. Once inside, Ethan darts through the store to his favorite section, and I find him pulling the Captain Underpants collection—the story of an elementary school comic-book superhero—one by one off the shelves. I promised him anything he wanted, within reason, when I won my Grammy. He chose books. This makes me happy.
“Do you want me to help carry them?” I ask when his arms are full.
He shakes his head. “I can do it.”
As we walk toward the counter, a coffee table book of photos captures my attention—it’s a book full of images of kissing. I snag it, figuring maybe Jeremy was right. Maybe I need to do the opposite of Crushed and write love songs. I buy the books and settle into the bookstore’s café with my son, where he reads about cartoon kids and I ogle kissing pics, respectively.
“Daddy!”
Ethan drops his books and rushes over to Aidan, who’s walking toward us in the café.
It’s such a universal response—the pure joy of the “Daddy!” reaction most kids exhibit when Dad comes home at the end of the day. Or when they are traded off to Daddy for the next few days, as the case may be.
Aidan picks him up and hugs him. “Hey there, little bud. How was school? But more important, what the heck has Captain Underpants been up to?”
Ethan launches into an explanation of the hero’s latest escapades as Aidan listens thoughtfully, nods at times, and widens his eyes to show his enthusiasm.
“I can not wait for you to read some of these stories to me.” Then he claps Ethan on the back and tells him to pop back into the chair for a few minutes. “I need to talk to your mom.” Then he pulls me aside.
“Hey, Jane,” Aidan says. He’s wearing a green V-neck sweater with a white T-shirt underneath, black slacks, and black shoes. Simple but classy. I swear he’s the most stylish high school history teacher in Manhattan. He teaches now at a progressive private high school on the Upper West Side called The Little Blue School.
“Hello, Aidan.”
“How’s everything going post-Grammy? Are you still on cloud nine?” He reaches out to give me a hug. I barely respond, standing there stiffly. I know it’s a friendly hug, but any contact from him is weird. It reminds me of how every bit of contact between us was a one-way street. He never wanted me like I wanted him.
“Yeah, everything is great.”
“That’s awesome. I’m so proud of you,” he says with a bright smile. Then he turns more serious. “So I left you a message, but you’re probably overwhelmed.”
“I received the message. And the e-mail too.”
“Oh. I didn’t hear back from you.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, looking down at the off-white tiled floor in the café.
“So what do you think?”
I shrug and look away. Because if I look at him, I will feel everything again. Every single awful thing I felt the night a year ago when I learned he needed a f*cking support group.
I’d been playing poker at Kelly’s apartment, our monthly poker night with our mom friends. We were a competitive crew. The regulars were Kelly and Natalie, and another mom friend and Gretchen. We usually assembled at Kelly’s place, a truly spacious two-bedroom on the Upper East Side. Kelly’s husband is a top research analyst at a bank, so they both can pull. He was out that night and their daughter, Sophie, was sound asleep in her Pottery Barn pink-and-green bedroom.
We’d all had a couple glasses of champagne and as these things go, we started talking about sex. Gretchen won a round of Texas Hold ’Em with three nines and must have been feeling pretty good. She simply remarked, “I had sex this morning. Third time in a week I’ve had morning sex.”
As moms, having morning sex, not to mention having it three times in one week, was quite a feat.
“Morning sex is great,” Gretchen said. “We do it before the boys wake up, I’m ready to go because I’ve just spent the last eight hours with Brad Pitt in my dreams, and then it’s over in ten minutes. And the best part is then I get to read in the evenings after we put the kids to bed.”
Then it was Natalie’s turn to boast that she and her husband, Trevor, had pulled off a quickie in a cab two weeks ago. We all hailed to the queen and tossed $1 red chips at her in admiration.
Kelly and I just laughed, neither one of us offering any stories. I wondered what was wrong with me if everyone else was actually having sex once, twice, three times a week and in cabs. I decided after I cashed in my forty-five dollars in winnings that I would definitely, come hell or high water, have sex with my husband that night. If I had to pin him down on the bed, tie him up, handcuff him. Because I wanted him. I had always wanted him since that night I laid eyes on him at Matt Murphy’s in Boston. I had never not wanted him.
I applied lip liner and lipstick in the window of the train home. I fluffed out my hair in the faded glass in the front door of our apartment building. I walked two flights up and unlocked the door to find Aidan wasn’t alone. He was seated on the couch, calmly, with a skinny man, probably in his forties, with thinning hair and a beaky nose.
“This is Calvin,” Aidan said.
I was a little tipsy from the champagne, so I reached a hand out to shake Calvin’s hand. “Well, hello, Calvin, and welcome to our humble home. Were you guys watching the playoffs or something?” I don’t follow sports, but there’s always some sort of championship game on.
“Actually, Jane. Calvin is my sponsor.”
Sponsor? Was my husband a drinker, a drug addict, and I didn’t know? Was he in AA or NA or something else?
Aidan kept talking. “Jane, I told you I’ve been going to night classes in European History at NYU for the last few months. That’s not true.”
He’d been lying to me? My Aidan, my dutiful, gorgeous, beautiful, young husband and doting father to Ethan had been lying to me?
“I’ve been going to a support group. GMSW.”
Calvin gave Aidan a supportive smile.
“Gay Men With Straight Wives,” Aidan said. “I’ve been working with them to face up to who I am and the decisions and choices I have made in my life. And I want you to know that I’m gay.”
Calvin patted Aidan once on the knee.
I started laughing. “That’s a good one, Aidan.”
But I was the only one laughing. “Jane, I love you as a friend and as the mother of my child. But I don’t love you the way a man should love a woman,” he went on. “And I can’t give you what you want, need, and deserve in a partner. The truth is I have been attracted to men since high school and I kissed a guy once in college. But I no longer want to hide. I want to live an open, honest life. And I ask you for your forgiveness.”
My head was spinning, like someone was compressing it between two hands.
“Is he your lover?” I rasped, pointing to Calvin.
Aidan shook his head. “No, and I have been faithful to you. But he is my friend. And he has helped me find the courage to come out of the closet. He did the same thing ten years ago when he came out to his wife. Now his ex-wife.”
It was like they were speaking Russian or something. And even if I had a translator with me, the words still wouldn’t make sense. Because this couldn’t possibly be happening. I wanted Aidan. I loved Aidan. I wanted to make love to Aidan.
But Aidan—my stomach still churns at the memory—wanted to make love to Tom. “And I met someone,” he continued. “Nothing has happened with him, because I wouldn’t do anything while we were married. But I met a man named Tom and we have feelings for each other and we want to have the opportunity to explore a relationship.”
It was like that moment when you pass from buzzed to drunk to wasted. You lie down on your bed, you close your eyes, and the bed starts spinning. The alcohol has won and it’s taking you on a bumper-car ride, leaving you bruised and broken.
Aidan kept going. “I’ll be moving out. I’ve arranged for an apartment and I hope we can have a peaceable divorce and share custody of Ethan.” He hung his head in his hands momentarily, then stood up and reached out a hand to shake mine. “I know this is hard for you and I am truly, truly sorry for any pain I might be causing.”
“Pain you might be causing?” I croaked, placing a hand on the wall to steady myself. Aidan wiped what might have been a tear from his eye.
Then Calvin stood up and handed me a book called My Husband is Gay. He spoke for the first time. “A lot of other straight spouses have found this book helpful in the recovery process. I know my ex-wife did.”
He paused and took a step toward the door with Aidan, who picked up his prepacked gym bag, stuffed presumably with a few days’ worth of clothes. “Jane, I hope you’ll read this book. It will help you to know you’re not alone and that there’s support out there for women like you.”
Women like me.
“Just get out. And take your book.” I said, thrusting it back to him, as if it were some sort of diseased creature.
They left and I crumpled to the floor, staring at the door, dumbstruck.
“So what do you think?” Aidan asks gently, rooting me back to the here and now.
That I hate your support group. That I’m am ass for hating your support group. That on a rational, logical, human level it’s awesome that such a group exists. But on a personal one, I can’t help but feel they took you away.
But yet, I know it wasn’t the group. It wasn’t me; it was him. But I’m not always rational. I’m not always logical. Sometimes, I am an emotional beast.
Placing my hand on my hip and narrowing my eyes, I ask him, “Were you the one who told Jonas about us?”
“What?” he asks, confused. “Who’s Jonas?”
“Jonas Applebaum. The reporter who outed you at the Grammy presser.”
“I don’t even know Jonas.”
“Did Tom?”
“Jane,” he chides.
“Well, it was embarrassing. And as for your group—” Then I just shrug my shoulders and hold up my hands, remembering Kelly’s advice. Because I don’t know that I’m ready yet to be the poster child. “I have a lot on my plate, but I’m considering your request and will get back to you soon.”
“Thank you for considering it, then. You’d be helping a lot of women there. They sort of see you as a role model.”
Role model?
“Is that what this is all about? That’s why you’re inviting me?” I ask, shocked. Ethan glances up from his nearby chair.
Aidan nods. “Yes. Why is that surprising?”
“I’m a singer. I’m not trying to be a role model for anyone other than my own son. And definitely not a role model for women who were fooled by their husbands,” I spit back.
“I’ve said I was sorry a thousand times over and that I was never trying to fool you,” Aidan says with a soft sigh, and then he shifts gears. “We need to get working on the legal paperwork because it’s been a year now. We can do it without lawyers, right?”
In New York, unless you have grounds for divorce—which include adultery, inhuman treatment, or abandonment—you have to be separated for a year before the divorce proceedings can begin. The perfunctory year ended, so we’re ready to divorce now.
I lower my voice and try, like a ventriloquist, to not move my mouth. “But I thought we weren’t going to talk about the legal stuff in front of him. So why don’t we discuss it another time, since I need to get ready for Letterman anyway.”
I hug Ethan, zip up his coat, and plant a kiss on his forehead. Then I tell him I love him, and I say good-bye, keeping the transition as drama-free as possible for his sake.
I sit down in the café and absently flip through my book of kisses, watching through the window as Ethan and his dad walk down the street. My heart feels heavy for a moment as the two of them cross the block, hand in hand, then leave my line of sight. I miss the days when we were a threesome, when we’d both hold one of Ethan’s hands and the three of us would walk down the street together. I miss the quiet normalcy of being a family. Now we are just another divorcing couple in New York City, just another man and woman whose vows were nixed, just another pair of exes living separate lives.
Sometimes, when I feel dark and moody, when I get cynical and jaded, I wish we would fight like a regular old divorcing man and woman. I wish we could lob insults and invectives at each other with vigorous abandon. Then I can cue up Nine Inch Nails’s “Pretty Hate Machine” or Poe’s “Angry Johnny” and stomp around the house and throw things. But like now, like always, I’d stand there yelling too much, feeling too much, the only one with any emotions for the other.
The way it had always been.
I close the book of kisses. I’m not in the mood anymore. Besides, I have Letterman and a show tonight, so I pull my bag up on my shoulder, button my coat, and leave the bookstore. I glance at my watch. I have two hours to walk home, change, and grab a cab to David Letterman’s theater on Broadway. My phone vibrates and then I hear Kelly’s specialized ring tone—my phone plays “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper when she calls. The song is so retro it’s beyond retro, but it’s one of the few tunes that can match Kelly’s energy level. Maybe she can eject me from my Aidan-induced funk.
“Jane Black!”
“Kickin’ Kelly!”
“I have to tell you something!” Nearly everything Kelly says ends with an exclamation point. Her perkiness is infectious. Talking to her makes me want to break out in show tunes sometimes. “I have a new accountant and he’s so cute!”
“Do tell.”
“I just met him and he is adorable. Green eyes, dark blond hair, nice body. He wears the kind of clothes that Henry Cavill wears on the red carpet.”
“Clothes that aren’t tight, but clearly demonstrate he has a rocking body?”
“You know it, girl! I might just need to have him review all my accounts. He is that cute!”
Then I hear a singsong voice in the background. “Mommy, I am going to tell Daddy you said the accountant is cute.”
“Where are you, Kel?”
“In a cab. Just picked up Sophie.” Then she says to Sophie, “You are not to tell Daddy I just said that. Do you understand me, missy?”
“Maybe if you get me a cookie, I won’t tell,” I hear Sophie offer.
“Done.” Then back to me, “What can I say? She’s a good negotiator. So listen, my sweets. You know how I have that little celebrity gossip fetish?”
“Yeah.”
“I picked up Star Magazine and the picture of you is amazingly hot. I want to show it to you. Are you nearby?”
“Lexington and Twenty-Eighth.”
“We’re on Second and Twenty-Third. Stay there. We’ll pick you up on the southeast corner.”
Four minutes later, Kelly pushes open the door to her cab and I scoot inside.
“See? The photo is incredible.” Kelly flips the magazine to the picture of me accepting my Grammy. My hair did look good that night and I have a massive smile on my face. Maybe both Jeremy and Kelly are right—there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Then I see the headline:
“Under Her Nose”
I glance at Kelly and then at Sophie, who waves to me. “Hi, Jane. My mommy has a crush on her accountant, but I’m not going to tell Daddy since she’s getting me a cookie.”
“Sounds like a fair deal.”
I read the article.
Jane Black may have a Grammy but she doesn’t have gay-dar. Somehow, the songstress failed to notice for five-plus years that her husband preferred, how shall we say, not the fairer gender. Maybe she turned a blind eye to hubby’s interest in boys; after all, the former Mr. Jane Black bears a striking resemblance to Hollywood hottie Chris Pine. “I desperately wanted my marriage to work,” Black said in an exclusive interview with Star Magazine. Who wouldn’t want to keep Chris’s twin around!
I stare at Kelly, stunned. “At least the picture is good,” she repeats. “I mean, you look amazing. That’s all people are going to remember anyway. Half the people who buy this can’t even read.”
I don’t even know what to say. Jayden tricked me with the whole my sister had a gay boyfriend, too ruse, then he twisted my words; he mocked me. I followed Matthew’s advice to be myself. I dropped any canned facade. And here I am again, the butt of the joke. Matthew’s wrong, Jeremy’s wrong, and I’m wrong too in thinking doing a story with Matthew would be anything but a big mistake.
I fish my cell phone from my bag and call his cell.
“Matthew here,” he answers.
“Hi, it’s Jane Black.”
“The only person I want to hear from.”
“I can’t do the story. I’m sorry, but the timing doesn’t make sense.”
“Is this because of the Star Magazine story?”
“You saw it already?”
“Well, yes. I saw it online. I have a Google News Alert for you,” he says. I’m oddly flattered. He is doing his homework. But if I won’t let his e-mails distract me, I certainly won’t let a little Google News Alert do that either.
“Anyway, I hope you’ll understand.” I place a hand over the mouthpiece to ask Kelly to drop me off at my place a few blocks away. She leans forward to give the cabbie the address.
“Let’s talk about this in person, please.”
“Why?”
“Where are you? I’ll meet you in thirty minutes. Anywhere. Just tell me where.”
“I can’t meet right now. I’m going to be on Letterman in two hours.” The cab pulls up outside my apartment. “I have to go,” I tell him and hang up.