Now You See Her Page 0,14
to my first wife for almost thirty-three years,” he said, obliging her. “She was my high school sweetheart. We got married right out of college. We were the quintessential all-American couple. And then we were the quintessential all-American family, with three sons, a house in Lake Forest with a four-car garage, and everything you could possibly ask for. And then one day Kathy said she was feeling kind of funny—those were her exact words, she was feeling ‘kind of funny’—and we went to the doctor, and he said she had pancreatic cancer, and three months later she was dead.”
Marcy lowered her glass, stared at the table.
“And I was just reeling. Worse than reeling. I was off the wall. I mean, Kathy was it for me, you know? I’d never even been with another woman. And suddenly there I was, all alone. Well, I had my sons, of course, but they had their own lives to deal with. David and Mark are married, with small children, and Tony is twenty-three and finishing up his master’s degree in music. They had enough on their plate. And I’m acting like a total lunatic. One minute I’m holed up in the house, refusing to go anywhere, and the next minute I’m out on the town, staying out all night, bedding anything that moves. I mean I’m suddenly the new guy in town, right? And I don’t have any unsightly warts and rashes, so I’ve got all these women basically throwing themselves at me.”
“Floozies in Jacuzzis,” Marcy said, looking up, relieved when she saw Vic smile.
“Tony called them ‘the Brisket Brigade.’ ”
Marcy laughed.
“Anyway, one day I decided it was time to sell the house. I mean, Kathy and I had been talking about it for years. The kids were pretty much on their own, what did we need such a big house for, the usual discussions, right? And now that Kathy was dead, it was just me and seven empty bedrooms. It was time to move on.”
“Don’t the experts usually advise not making any big moves for at least a year after the death of a spouse?”
“If they don’t, they should. But it’s hard to listen to reason when you’re not being rational. And real estate agents aren’t exactly big on periods of reflection.”
“So you sold your house?”
“No. I married my realtor.”
“What?”
“Yup, you heard correctly. Good old reliable, once-sane Victor Sorvino up and marries a woman twenty-five years his junior, a woman he’s known for less than three months, barely six months after his beloved first wife passed away, and he flies off to Las Vegas and marries her without telling anyone, without even a prenup, and the marriage is a total fiasco from the moment he says ‘I do,’ and she basically says, ‘I don’t, at least not with you,’ and six months later, we agree to a divorce, and among other things, she gets the house, which, incidentally, she now has up for sale.”
“What some agents won’t do to secure a listing.” Everybody has a story, Marcy was thinking, marveling at what he’d just told her.
“Grief makes us do funny things,” he said.
Marcy agreed silently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be glib. Are you all right?”
“Let’s say I’m recovering. Like an alcoholic, I guess. I don’t think we ever fully get over the death of someone we love. We just learn to live with their absence.”
“Do we?”
“Do we have a choice?”
Marcy turned her head, grateful to see the waiter approaching with their food.
“Careful, it’s hot,” the waiter warned as he lowered their dishes to the table.
“Looks good,” Vic said, inhaling the steam rising from his plate.
Marcy immediately tore into her shepherd’s pie. “It’s delicious,” she said.
“I think I should apologize,” Vic said.
“For what?”
“For monopolizing the conversation all night.”
“It’s been fascinating.”
Vic shrugged. “Tell me more about you.”
“Not much to tell. My husband left me for one of the golf pros at our country club. Her handicap was lower than mine,” she added, feeling the smile she tried to muster wobble precariously on her mouth.
“How long were you married?” Vic asked.
“Going on twenty-five years. This trip was supposed to be a second honeymoon to celebrate our anniversary. Didn’t quite work out that way.”
“So you came by yourself. That’s very …”
“Stupid?”
“I was going to say brave.”
“I don’t think that’s a word too many people would use to describe me.”
“Then it’s amazing how wrong people can be.”
“Yes.” Marcy agreed. It was amazing how wrong people could be.
“Do you have any children?” he asked.
“Yes. Two.”
“Boys? Girls?”
“One of