My Three Husbands (3 page)

I kicked off the red stilettos that were killing my feet. “The dads took me out to dinner.”

“Oh?” She moved closer. I was her only source of information about the glamorous private lives of the dads. “Where?”

“Gianicolo.”

“Oh? I haven't heard of that. Is it new?”

“It's this fabulous new Italian restaurant over in the West Hills. Everything's gray and black-and-white marble. Except for this blue wall of water.”

“Was it expensive? How much was the bill?”

“A hundred and fifty-four with tip. For three en-trées and three Caesars. I had a dessert and we all had espresso. And wine.”

“Who paid?”

“They split it.”

“Was the food good?”

“They were raving.”

“The dads were?”

“Mm-hm.”
I waited a second. “They're getting married.”

“The dads are?” She didn't so much sit down as drop into the chair beside me. “You mean like a commitment ceremony?”

“That county registry thing. Domestic partnership.”

“Well,” she said, “isn't that nice.”

“Did you know they've been together for
twenty
years?”

“Yes, sweetheart, I'm aware of that.”

“That's longer than anyone I know. Straight or gay.”

Her eyes stole over to the television screen.

“They invited me and Tremaynne to go on our honeymoon with them.”

Mom cocked her head, like a bird who's just heard a worm, and slowly rose from her chair. “Would you like some passionflower tea, sweetheart?”

“Ick, no.”

“I'm afraid I can't offer you very much. I'm off coffee, pop, wine, off everything but natural herb teas and pure spring water. Carla”—her nutritionist—“thinks I might be allergic to wheat. Gluten. And of course I'm lactose-intolerant.”

I didn't want details but dutifully asked if she was feeling any better.

“Well, sweetheart, I've been ill for a very long time, you know. I just didn't know it. And nobody's been able to figure out exactly what it is.”

Lose a hundred pounds, turn off the Bette Davis movies, and get out of this house once in a while,
I wanted to shout. But didn't. “Should we go on a honeymoon with the dads?” I asked.

“Well, sweetheart, it depends on what you want.”

Out of the blue I just blew up. “Can't you ever just give me one solid piece of advice? My whole life it's always been up to me to decide everything. And it's like I never make the right decision.”

Mom was on the verge of tears. Breathing hard to fight down her panicky agitation. “Well, we learn from our mistakes,” she said wobbily.

“Then why do I keep doing the same stupid things over and over again?”

“I don't know where you're coming from, sweetheart. Did you have a fight with Tremaynne?”

“No, but it pissed me off that he wouldn't even go out to dinner with me and the dads. They invited
us.
It was supposed to be a kind of special prewedding kind of dinner thingie for
us.
For me
and
Tremaynne.”

“A celebration.”

“Yeah. But he wouldn't dress up, so I just told him to stay at home.”

“Are you having second thoughts about marrying Tremaynne?” Mom asked.

“Well, the first two turned out to be duds, didn't they?”

“Maybe three will be your lucky number.”

To smoke, I had to stand outside on her teeny front porch. Mom stayed inside, behind the screen door, seated and listening like a priest in a confessional.

“Sometimes I think I have, like, absolutely no ability to judge character,” I said, trying to blow my smoke away. The breeze blew it right into the house. Mom coughed. “It's, like, I'll believe anything a guy tells me.”

“Well, you essentially trust people, sweetheart. You assume they're always telling the truth.”

“They act one way when they want to fuck you and then turn into something else afterward.”

“Tremaynne seems more . . .
intelligent
than either Sean or Peter,” Mom observed. “Or JD for that matter. But he seems shy. He doesn't share a lot.”

“He doesn't trust people.”

“Oh. Well, when you lose your trust—” Mom said vaguely.

I flicked my cigarette out toward the street and lit another. The caffeine from that last double espresso at the restaurant zoomed through my veins. I wanted to be out on a dance floor. I wanted to be happy. I wanted never to end up like Mom.

 

 

Tremaynne was sleeping when I got home. He'd left all the candles burning, which meant he wanted to make love.

Once he came down from that tree, after spending three months in it, it's like that's all he wanted to do. It never got boring. Tremaynne said he loved my body, and he proved it every time we fucked. I faked orgasms with my first two husbands. I didn't fake them with Tremaynne. I never fantasized that he was Ethan Hawke or Leonardo DiCaprio.

But tonight I was still pissed off with him for not going out to dinner with me and the dads. I crouched down beside the futon and looked at his sleeping face, the wispy goatee, the long eyelashes, the oh-so-kissable lips. His warm, earthy smell seeped up from the tangled bedclothes.

I thought: This man will always tell the truth. This man will never compromise his principles. This man will never wear cologne (maybe not even deodorant). This man is dedicated to being natural.

All that was good.

Then, suddenly, I had a glimpse of the future. Our future. I thought: I will never see this man dressed up in a drop-dead suit. This man will never shine at one of the dads' big parties. This man will never take me out to a hip restaurant or on a trip to Venice. This man will never play the status game, so we'll never have a pretty house or a cool car or stainless-steel appliances. This man is part Teflon: He won't let my middle-class fantasies stick to him.

 

 

Tremaynne was an alternative media star when I met him. He was famous because he'd spent three months living in a tree in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. It was a grove of old-growth redwoods that some lumber company wanted to cut down.

He joined a group called Arbor Vitae. This group did everything it could to stop the logging. They spiked trees, damaged equipment, and chained themselves to tree trunks. Then Tremaynne volunteered to actually live in one of the oldest and largest of the threatened redwoods. The lumber people were so pissed off with Arbor Vitae they wanted to kill everyone in the group. Especially Tremaynne.

Living 180 feet up in a tree was the kind of publicity stunt that Tremaynne knew would draw attention to the cause. He looked like a movie star when he was on the news. Like Brad Pitt without the jaw line. A local station covered the story and I just happened to see it one night when I was at my mom's. Then a local indie rock station started a weekly “Tremaynne in the Tree” story, asking him how he was doing and what was new. His life was, like, totally surreal and fascinating.

When his tree-sit was over, the tree-man who called himself Tremaynne came to Portland. He got more publicity when he joined an Animal Liberation Front demonstration in front of a big animal research facility. Tremaynne Woods, movie-star-cute hero of environmental causes and animal rights, was in the news again. You listened to his stories of animal cruelty because he was so incredibly sexy.

But he still had to go through the bankruptcy thing because he'd been living on plastic for two years and his creditors were hunting him down.

There are so many bankrupts that the proceedings are held with groups of ten at a time. Tremaynne and I met as my group was coming out of the bankruptcy courtroom and his group was going in. It was, like, ordained. The minute I recognized him I knew I'd marry him. We weren't shy with each other at all. It was, like, we both instantly understood that we wanted to be together.

The one thing I wasn't quite prepared for was how short he was. He looked a lot taller on TV.

“How was the judge?” he asked. “Did he sentence you to debtor's prison for the rest of your life?”

“No. It went just like the lawyer said.”

“I don't have a lawyer,” he said. “I'm doing it all myself.” He held up a copy of
Bankruptcy for Dummies.

“I used a kit for my recent divorce,” I said, all smiley, making sure he saw I wasn't wearing a wedding ring.

He looked me up and down, slowly, his eyes licking me up. I felt a hot stirring in my crotch.

“What did the judge let you keep?” he asked.

“My car. I suppose because it's not worth anything.”

“I don't own a car,” he said. “I don't want to contribute to global warming.”

“You're Tremaynne Woods, aren't you?” I had to make sure.

He smiled and cocked his head, pleased that I'd recognized him. “And who are you?”

“Venus Gilroy.”

“The goddess of love. Here in bankruptcy court.”

“I hate money,” I said.

“But you have such beautiful assets.”

A warm shudder ran through me. “Not anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” he said quietly. “I don't believe you.”

“The judge wiped out my debt, but he wiped out my credit, too. It's cash-only for the next seven years.”

“Those weren't the kind of assets I was talking about, Venus.” He kept his voice low, intimate, like he was sharing a secret with me.

In the hot, focused beam of his eyes I felt like kindling just starting to catch fire. My clothes were burning away. “If you're interested,” I said, “I could show you my spreadsheet.”

He looked me up and down again. He came as close as a whisper. “Do you know how they kill foxes to make fur coats?”

“I don't wear fur,” I said.

“They stick an electric rod up their asshole and electrocute them.”

“That's horrible.”

“I worked in one of those places. Undercover. I got pictures.” He gently took hold of my wrist, looked into my eyes, then glanced at my watch. “I gotta go. Destitution beckons.”

We both stood there, staring at one another, not wanting to break the magic bubble.

Someone should write a book about what it feels like to fall in love at first sight. It's a weird, almost dangerous feeling. Nothing and no one else matters. It's like looking into a wild river. You know that it's there, just waiting to suck you away in its dark, powerful current. All you have to do is jump.

I would have run away with Tremaynne Woods that minute if he'd asked me to.

“They like it when you sound contrite,” I said. “In court. Like you've learned your lesson.”

“I learned my lesson all right,” Tremaynne said. “Too bad it was the wrong one.” There was a kind of mocking defiance in his voice and cocky manner.

“You don't think we're supposed to learn from our mistakes?”

“I don't make mistakes,” he said.

“Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Everything I do, I do for a reason,” he said. “Where's your car parked?”

“Not far.”

“You want to drive me to the homeless shelter when I'm out of here?”

I didn't know if he was joking or not. “You don't live in a homeless shelter.”

“Are you inviting me to move in with you?”

The river was waiting. I closed my eyes and jumped in.

 

 

The fact that we'd met in bankruptcy court always seemed kind of crazily romantic to me. Now an irritating little voice whispered: “This man has no money and no credit cards. Like you, he doesn't know how to make money or keep money. He'll never be able to support you; you'll probably end up supporting him.”

And did I really want a life committed to environmental activism? A life dedicated to saving trees instead of roaring around in a gas-guzzling SUV?

I looked down at my tattooed engagement ring, wondering why I'd even asked him to marry me. Because if I was brutally brutally honest, Tremaynne Woods had nothing to offer except the best sex I'd ever had in my life. He staked a claim on my body the first time we made love. When sex is that good, it has to mean something.

As I crouched there, petting him and wondering about our future, he opened one nut-colored eye and stared at me. Brushed his fingers along my cheek. “Why you crying, babe?”

I shook my head. I really didn't know why I was blubbering. Sometimes life and who you are and what you want and what you end up with just seems like too much. Or too little.

Confusing.

Underneath all my doubts I did love him. The question was, why? He was strong but tender, with a secret vulnerability that made me want to take care of him. He was committed to something in a way I never had been. He seemed to exist in a larger picture, a larger world than mine.

“Come to bed.” He sat up and slowly began to undress me.

The futon was all warm and ready, just waiting for me to slide in between the sheets.

“How was dinner with your dads?” Tremaynne asked as he slowly unbuttoned my blouse.

“I wish you'd been there.”

He pulled off my blouse and rested his head on my breasts. “Mmmm. So warm. This is my dinner.”

“They were so disappointed,” I said. And let out a sigh as he moved up and began nuzzling my neck. “It was supposed to be a celebration.”

“I hope you had a good time,” he said, squatting behind me. He brushed my hair to one side and gave the back of my neck little love bites.