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Get Published on Female First
"Is it true?" Janine asked, her voice trembling.
Gary squirmed and turned away.
Janine went white, ran to the toilet and vomited. When she returned to the room, Gary had gone.
The scent of his aftershave was still on Janine's pillow. She lay motionless in the dark.
Empty images of life rose and fell in her mind - her law practice, their new home and dinner parties, and Gary's red Jaguar, bought from the profits of his latest killing on the stock market.
Then the images vanished, and in their place his face appeared, like a screensaver, until it too faded away and the screen was blank.
How can this be? He was the universe I lived in. There's nothing left for me now, just emptiness.
She cried all night, but in the morning she cursed his name, ripping his pillow to shreds and burning it in the backyard.
Later two burly men with a truck from the Salvation Army stood at the door.
"This is the address for a double bed and base, ma'am?"
"Yes," said Janine. "Please take it away."
A week later, she returned to the office.
"Nice to have you back," her associate said. Janine's umbrella hung like a wet bat as she eased out of her coat and shook off the rain.
"How's it going? Are you starting to get over him?"
"A little older, a lot greyer," Janine replied. "I'm still teary at times, but getting there. We'd been a long time together. Let's see if I can get through to lunchtime."
She adjusted her make-up in the washroom mirror and brushed her tousled brunette hair, noting the puffiness from crying that highlighted the crow's feet around her blue eyes. Good God, she thought, I'm forty-five but going on sixty-five.
Her first appointment was a new client, Mrs Pamela Mulgrave.
Slumped on the leather chair in front of Janine's mahogany desk, Mrs Mulgrave fumbled nervously with her handbag and then blurted out that her husband had left her for someone else.
"This is all I need," thought Janine, twitching her legs under the desk, but her lawyer's mask remained firmly in place. She studied the woman in front of her - slim, middle-aged, smartly dressed, and attractive in an unremarkable way, but her downcast face under its make-up seemed worn and carried a shocked expression.
Janine picked up her fountain pen. "Would you like to tell me what's happened, Mrs Mulgrave? Take your time."
Mrs Mulgrave took a deep breath and began to speak, haltingly, pausing often to clear her throat or cough. She seemed to stare at the carpet.
"I met him ten years ago at work. I work for an escort agency, catering for the older clientele. Everything just clicked. We fell in love and within a couple of months we were married. I kept on with my job - we both agreed it was purely professional. Besides, the money was good, and he didn't have a steady job."
She blew her nose.
"I had no idea there was anything wrong until last week. Out of the blue, he announced he'd fallen in love with another woman. He told me he hated my life-style and said he was going to leave. I broke down and pleaded with him to stay, but he left that afternoon. Yesterday I got a letter from his lawyer. He wants to divorce me."
Janine marveled that the woman had not once looked up at her as she was speaking. I could be butt naked, she thought, and she wouldn't know.
"I built my world around him," Mrs Mulgrave went on. "He was my man and I loved him, still do, and we were good together, real good. I'd give anything to have him back. I just love him. Where's the sense in it all? Why do women have to be like this?"
She fell silent, her fingers toying with the clasp of her handbag, clutched tight against her lap.
"I've got nothing left of who I was. I'm just... empty."
Janine looked at Mrs Mulgrave and saw herself. Her lawyer's mask slipped and a low wail escaped her lips.
Mrs Mulgrave's head jerked up and her eyebrows rose to the top of her forehead.
Janine looked into Mrs Mulgrave's eyes, which she saw were hazel and soft, full of compassion. Like a loving sister's.
The two stayed for some minutes gazing into each other, streaming tears.
"I do apologise for this, Pamela," Janine muttered, passing a box of tissues to the other woman and taking one herself. "I have some emotional issues of my own at this time but it is very remiss of me to allow them to surface in this professional setting."
She dried her eyes and face and picked up the pen which had fallen from her hand.
Pamela lowered her eyes.
The interview continued for another twenty five minutes and another appointment was made for later in the week.
After another three clients before lunchtime, Janine left the building for fresh air and something to eat.
She spotted Pamela sitting head down in the window of Danny's Bistro. Seized by a sudden impulse, she went inside and tapped her on the shoulder. Pamela looked up, smiled and reached out her arm.
"You and I, Pamela," Janine heard herself saying, "have things to talk about, my dear..."
She pulled up a chair and the two women ate lunch and drank coffee together, talking, talking and talking some more, until an anger grew within them that was both empowering and positive.
Two hours later, they left the bistro arm in arm, still talking. Heavy rain was falling, but it was dry under Janine's dark blue umbrella as they strode along the busy footpath, their heads held high.
When a red Jaguar swished past, Janine shook her fist at it.
Pamela turned to her, eyes wide with astonishment.
"Is that your husband. I mean, was?"
"That's him," said Janine. "There's no mistaking that number plate. What an ego!"
Pamela stopped abruptly in the middle of the footpath. An elderly man on a mobility scooter swerved to avoid her, letting out a string of oaths.
Janine pulled her into a doorway. "What on earth is wrong?"
"I know that red car," Pamela mumbled, looking at the pavement. "I've been...I've ridden in it often enough."
"You've what!"
Pamela's face was bright red. "He's a client of mine."
Janine's jaw dropped. "Did you see the number plate? There's more than one red Jaguar in the city..."
"A birthmark above his belly button in the shape of a snake?"
"Good Lord!"
"He used to pick me up at eight o'clock every Wednesday night," said Pamela, slowly.
"The swine!" said Janine. "He told me Wednesday was 'members only' practice night at the Gentlemen's Billiard Club!"
"I'm so sorry," said Pamela, dabbing at tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks.
"It's not your fault, love. You were just doing your job," Janine put an arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"I hadn't seen him for a couple of months," Pamela continued. "One of the other girls said she'd heard he was going to leave his wife and move in with some woman called Lucianne. Guess that was why. Then all of a sudden I get a call yesterday for an appointment at the usual time and place, next Wednesday night."
"Lucianne..." mused Janine. "So that's who Lucy is. I checked his phone contacts while he was in the shower. I wrote a couple of dodgy numbers down. I suppose one was yours!"
Pamela looked horrified.
"Don't sweat it, Pamela," said Janine, laughing. "This is all helping me to get over him, big time. Would you like to come home with me for a wine, dry off for an hour or two by the fire? You and I need to plan a little surprise for our Gary..."
*
Right on eight o'clock the following Wednesday evening, the red Jaguar rolls up to an abandoned bus shelter on the outskirts of the city.
"Hullo, love," Gary calls out, as he leans across to open the passenger's door.
Pamela limps over to the car.
"Nice to see you again, Gary!"
"Hop in."
"I...I can't just yet," she laughs. "I've left a boot behind in the bus shelter. The heel's stuck in some sort of storm water grate."
"Let's have a look..." Gary glances at his watch and leaps out of the car.
"Oh hi, girls!" Pamela turns to two female figures emerging from trees into the streetlight. "I didn't know you were working Winterburn Street tonight."
The girls hitch their handbags over their shoulders and pout their lips.
"Sure, honey. Aren't you gonna introduce us to this dish of a man?"
Gary's shoes have frozen to the concrete under the light. Blood rises in a network of capillaries pulsing on his face. He can hardly breathe as he tries to take in the amply displayed breasts, fishnet stockings, black suspenders and lace camisoles worn by two women he knows very well.
"Gary," says Pamela, "I'd like you to meet two of my colleagues, Janine and Lucianne."
Gary has turned to stone. His face suddenly drains of all colour. His eyes race from one woman to another in panic. Janine flutters painted eyelids at him. "Gary, darling, how nice to see you!"
"Oh, what a lovely surprise!" Lucianne says, in a husky Marilyn Monroe voice. "I thought you were playing billiards tonight."
Pamela claps her hands in delight. "Oh, you three already know each other! How about a foursome tonight? Mates' rates!"
"Oh, yes! Why not!" cries Janine, clapping her hands, stepping jauntily towards Gary. "Let's do it!"
Gary utters something unintelligible through lips that barely move.
"Good idea!" squeals Lucianne, stepping up to Gary, moving her hips like a belly dancer and loosening his tie. "Didn't know I had another job on Wednesday nights, did you, hon?"
"Could be such a lot of fun!" exclaims Janine, licking a scarlet fingertip and swinging a fur scarf across her face. "Surprised, are you?"
Gary steps backwards and nearly stumbles in the gutter. Lucianne throws her arms around him and tries to kiss him on the lips. "Darling, you don't mind, do you? Seeing as you've obviously been meeting Pamela..."
Gary pushes her away and sprints to his car. Janine kicks off her high heeled boots and races after him, thrusting her head through the open passenger door.
At the sight of the lawyer's raised backside in skimpy skirt and purple panties, Pamela and Lucianne bend over themselves laughing.
Janine calmly lays a hand on Gary's shirtsleeve. "By the way, Gary," she says, spitting out the name with contempt, "it is my legal duty to advise you that one of my clients has died of Aids and we never found out until it was too late. As required by law, I've made a full and frank disclosure of all my partners to the STD clinic, and they will be expecting you to call in for a test. Best you go within the next twenty-four hours..."
Gary lets out a strangled roar and the Jaguar speeds away, churning up stones and slewing its tyres at the first corner.
The three women skip towards each other and fall together in a huddle.
For a long time afterwards, trees around them echo with their laughter.
The end.
Tagged in Bruce Costello