Ladies' Night, Andrews, Kay [best time to read books .txt] 📗

think it’s a little, uh, I don’t know, risqué for a neighborhood party?”

“No, I do not,” Callie snapped. “I’ve been working on this costume for weeks. Yours, too. And that’s all you can say? I look risqué?”

He shrugged. “You asked.”

“Well I don’t care what you think. I think I look hot. And cute.” She grabbed a gold beaded clutch purse and opened the front door. “Are you coming?”

He went to the party, had a couple beers, talked football with a couple of the guys, and watched glumly from across the room while his wife knocked back half a dozen wine coolers and then proceeded to strut and shimmy and flirt with every guy in the room.

Callie was doing a tipsy but highly suggestive belly dance with Luke out on the patio when Wyatt tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled around, then frowned when she saw it was her husband. “What?”

“It’s eleven thirty,” he said pointedly. “We promised we’d get Melanie home by midnight.”

“It’s Friday night. There’s no school tomorrow! Just call her and tell her we’re going to stay later,” Callie said. “It’s no big deal.”

“It actually is a big deal,” Wyatt replied. “She’s got to get up early because she’s taking the SATs tomorrow.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Callie said. “Just when the party is starting to crank up.” She looked over at Luke and gestured at Wyatt. “Meet Aladdin—he traded his magic carpet for a wet blanket.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Wyatt said stiffly. “I’ll go, since she drove herself over to the house.”

“You mean it?” Callie’s face lit up, her pout forgotten. “I won’t stay that much longer. I just want to hang around long enough to see who wins the costume contest.”

Luke laughed and wrapped an arm around Callie’s shoulder. “You already know who won—lady.” He gave Wyatt a wink. “Don’t worry about her. I’ll walk her home myself. Okay?”

What could Wyatt say? Callie planted a perfunctory kiss on his forehead. He walked the two blocks home, paid the babysitter, and walked her out to her car. He looked in on Bo, who was fast asleep, then went to bed. Alone. He woke up at 3:30 A.M., glanced at the clock, and then back at Callie’s side of the bed. She wasn’t there.

He couldn’t sleep. Finally, Wyatt got up. He peered out the front window, just in time to see Luke and Callie stroll slowly up the sidewalk. The window was open, and the curtains billowed in a faint breeze. Callie’s giggle floated on the night air, and Luke said something in a low voice. She leaned heavily on the arm Luke had around her waist. As Wyatt watched, they stopped just short of the driveway. Luke pulled her from the sidewalk into the shadow of their neighbor’s Florida holly tree. Wyatt’s heart stopped. His hand clutched the curtain fabric as he watched his wife wrap her arms around Luke’s neck, press herself up against his chest, and pull the neighborhood fun guy into a long, deep kiss.

As he walked back to their bedroom, Wyatt checked the dial on the clock radio on his side of their bed. He made a note of the time. 3:47 A.M. It was the moment time stopped in what he thought had been a perfectly happy marriage.

9

Callie never did come to bed that night. She was asleep on the living room sofa in the morning. Her fez was on the floor, her hair mussed and spilling over the sofa cushion. The blue eye shadow and black liner were smeared into raccoon circles under her eyes. One breast peeked all the way out of the bikini top.

“What happened to Mommy?” He hadn’t heard their barefoot son pad into the room. Bo stood looking down in horror at Callie.

Wyatt pulled an afghan over Callie’s shoulders and scooped Bo up into his arms. “She didn’t feel so good last night when she came home from the party, so she slept out here. Come on, sport, let’s get you some breakfast.”

Months later, after the trial separation, after the tears and accusations and denials, Wyatt knew, in retrospect, he should have said something the night of the Halloween party. Maybe if he’d let Callie know what he’d seen, told her he loved her and didn’t want to lose her, maybe things would have turned out differently. Or maybe he might have admitted he didn’t love her enough. Not enough to fight Luke for her.

But things didn’t turn out that way. Eventually, Callie admitted that she and Luke were in love. Eventually, she told him the marriage had been in trouble for a long time. And so Wyatt did the decent thing. They agreed it was important for Bo’s life to retain some degree of normalcy. Callie would keep the house so that Bo could stay in his school. Wyatt was thirty-eight years old, with a failed marriage and an ailing business.

Wyatt moved out of their little house and into a battered double-wide trailer at Jungle Jerry’s that had once been the living quarters for a security guard—from back in the day when they actually had the funds and the need for a security guard.

When it came time to start divorce proceedings, his Aunt Betsy offered to handle his side, pro bono. They somehow worked out a time-sharing agreement, with Bo splitting his time between the two of them. Wyatt’s dad, Nelson, moved into the second bedroom of the double-wide to help out with child care for Bo on the weekends and after school on the days Bo stayed with Wyatt.

Wyatt was shocked at how fast his marriage unraveled and dumbfounded at the changes in Callie once she and Luke moved in together.

Or had she been somebody else all along? Wyatt would never be sure.

Their temporary custody-sharing arrangement got off to a rocky start. On the first weekend Bo was to spend with Wyatt, he got a tearful call from his son on Friday night, hours after Callie was to have dropped him off