Beautiful Day Read Free Page B

person on the other side shared the details of his or
     her disintegrating marriage. Doug had heard it all—He cheated with Her best friend,
     She cheated with the tennis pro, there was wife swapping, He hit the kids, She had
     Munchausen’s, She had a drinking problem, He gambled away the kids’ college funds,
     He was addicted to pornographic websites, She abused prescription drugs, He lost his
     job and sat around the house all day in his bathrobe, She weighed three times what
     She had when He married Her, He was an asshole, She was a bitch, He wasn’t giving
     Her one red cent, She was going to take Him for all He was worth. For thirty-five
     years,Doug had nodded along, pretending to be feeling his clients’ angst, but really, he
     had no idea. He was happily married; he flat-out adored his wife. Even after twenty-five
     years of marriage, he had sat on this very train and looked forward to the moment
     he would walk into the house and see Beth.
    It was only in the past year that Doug had finally understood what his clients were
     feeling. He didn’t recognize himself in the dramatic scenes—there was no abuse in
     his marriage to Pauline, no derelict behavior, no destructive habits, no special needs
     children, no financial woes, no infidelity—rather, Doug identified with his quieter,
     sadder clients. The marriage no longer provided any joy. They got on each other’s
     nerves, there was a constant buzz of low-level bickering, they were happier and more
     comfortable when they were apart from each other.
    Yes, that was him. That was him exactly.
    Pauline was out somewhere, she had probably told him where, but he had forgotten;
     it went in one ear and out the other, just as she always said. He didn’t care where
     she was, as long as she wasn’t home. Lately, Doug had even had fantasies of Pauline
     driving on Route 7 while talking on the phone to her daughter, Rhonda, and having
     a fatal accident. He couldn’t believe it. He had heard similar sentiments come out
     of his clients’ mouths—
I wish he/she would just die!
—but he never believed himself capable of such a thought. And yet it did now occasionally
     cross his mind. He nearly always amended this fantasy. Pauline didn’t have to
die
to set him free. She might, one day, wake up and decide that she wanted to go back
     to her ex-husband, Arthur Tonelli. She might climb into the car, get Rhonda immediately
     on the phone, as was her annoying habit, and announce to Rhonda that she was driving
     to the Waldorf Astoria to see if Arthur would take her back.
    Doug shed his suit coat and his briefcase and loosened his tie. He’d skipped lunch
     so he could get out of the office early. Edge was going to court first thing in the
     morning to deal with the shitshow Cranbrook case (Mr. Cranbrook, investment banker,
     leveraged to the hilt because he was keeping a woman on the side in an apartment on
     East Sixtieth Street and had bought her a Porsche Carrera, all with his secret credit
     card, the fate of three children under seven, one of them with extreme special needs,
     hanging in the balance)—and thus Edge wouldn’t get to Nantucket until six o’clock
     tomorrow evening at the very earliest. He would miss the first round of golf, and
     Doug felt guilty about that. The Cranbrook case was Doug’s case, and it was a hot,
     steaming mess. Edge was helping Doug out by taking over tomorrow. Doug obviously couldn’t
     do it himself and risk missing his daughter’s wedding.
    He was starving and went into the kitchen for something, anything, to eat. Pauline,
     like a housewife from the Depression era, liked to leave the fridge and cupboards
     all but bare before they went away. In the crisper, Doug found one apple and a few
     stalks of celery. He bit into the apple and dragged the celery lavishly through a
     jar of peanut butter that he pulled out of the pantry.
    Then he saw it on the kitchen counter, next to the prep sink where Pauline was