The Other Wife. Shirley Jump

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ look like hell.” Once I was situated, she crossed to the counter, opened the Lambrusco and poured each of us a glass. I thought of protesting, but the energy to do it had left me a long time ago.

      “Thanks,” I said, and took a long swig of the wine, forcing myself not to gag.

      “Harvey is Dave’s dog,” she repeated. “And he—”

      She cut herself off. I looked at her face, noticed her staring at the dog, and turned my gaze to him. He was balancing on his hind legs, that silly Beggin’ Strip on his nose. “And he does tricks,” I finished.

      “Oh my God,” Georgia said. “I recognize him now. I saw him on the Late Show once. He’s, like, famous.”

      “And now he’s mine. Surprise, surprise.”

      Georgia ran a hand through her riot of blond curls. Last month, she’d had it straight and red. The month before, it had been black and spiky. I was surprised Georgia’s hair hadn’t mutinied. “Wait a minute. You didn’t know Dave had a dog?”

      “I didn’t know a lot of things.” I took a second swig of wine. A third. “Like that he also had another wife.”

      There. I’d said the words out loud. Now it was real.

      All I had to do now was figure out a way to make it all go away.

      Georgia opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Another wife?”

      “And apparently a road show with Harvey at the center.” I shook my head. “I swear, I’m in The Twilight Zone.”

      “What are you going to do?”

      “Do?” I shrugged, then tipped the rest of the wine into my mouth. “Go to work. Try to lead a normal life again. And find a home for Harvey.”

      At that, he slid back down onto the floor and let out a whine.

      “You can’t do that. He’s like—” Georgia gave the canine an indulgent smile “—a lost spirit himself. He’s been through a lot, too.”

      “He’s also, like, a reminder of a husband who betrayed me,” I said to Georgia, “then left me with a mortgage and a funeral bill I can’t afford because God knows Dave was way too cavalier and happy-go-lucky to invest in something like long-term planning.” I drew in a breath, tried not to choke on it. “Or a marriage.”

      Georgia let the heated words roll away. “But aren’t you the tiniest bit curious? Like about why Dave did it?”

      “No.” I paused, finally listening to the thoughts and feelings that had been waiting behind Curtain Number Two in my head. “Okay, yes. I am.”

      “Then I say you investigate.”

      I shook my head, toying with the empty glass. “No. No way. I don’t go running around, investigating. I go to work, pay my taxes and balance my checkbook. Like a normal American.”

      “Who happens to be married to a bigamist.”

      The word hung in the air, heavy, fat. I wanted to pluck it up and toss it away, bury it under the brown carpet I’d never liked but agreed to because Dave had thought it was homey.

      I shook my head. “All I have to do is talk to Kevin. He and Dave were closer than anyone I know.” Or at least, they’d seemed to be. Of course, I’d thought I was pretty close to my husband. But apparently knowing the man’s inseam length and his favorite brand of shaving lather wasn’t intimacy.

      “What about the other wife? Did you meet her?”

      “She was at the wake.”

      “She was?” Georgia let out a couple of curses. “Which one?”

      “The one with the rhinestones on her shoes.”

      “Oh, those were cool shoes,” Georgia said. “But on her, totally inappropriate.”

      I loved my sister for adding that, for saying the words she knew I was thinking.

      “Did you talk to her?” Georgia asked.

      “For about five seconds. She was here when I got home, but only stayed long enough to ditch the dog and run.” I got to my feet, poured Chardonnay into my empty wineglass and returned to the table. “I don’t know where she lives, and with a last name like Reynolds, I’ll be banging on a thousand doors trying to find her.”

      Georgia thought for a minute, twirling the glass between her hands. “Did you check Dave’s cell phone?”

      Of course. He’d undoubtedly stored her number in there, probably with a voice tag, because he’d been incapable of dialing while he was behind the wheel.

      “I got the feeling she doesn’t want to talk,” I said. “Besides, I’m not so sure I want to know what went on between her and Dave. I’ve had enough information to last me a lifetime.”

      “Have you asked the dog?”

      “Asked the dog? Are you nuts? I can’t talk to a dog.”

      “I bet Harvey is your key.” Georgia nodded. “And I bet he knows a lot more than he’s letting on with that little snout.”

      “I am not asking the dog. Or anyone on his upcoming six-city ‘tour.’”

      “He has a tour planned?” Georgia’s turquoise contact colored eyes grew bright. “Perfect! I see a road trip in your future, sis.”

      “No, no, no.” But even as I said the words, Georgia was off and running, retrieving the road atlas from the den.

      “You have to do it, Penny,” Georgia said. “Where’s Harvey supposed to go first?”

      “The Dog-Gone-Good Show in Tennessee in three days.”

      “How cool,” Georgia said, flipping the pages, moving us visually toward Tennessee. “It could be the key to solving the greatest mystery of your life.”

      There’d been a reason I’d hated Nancy Drew books as a kid. I couldn’t suffer through two hundred pages of mystery. I wanted to know the end before I began. I didn’t want to take a path filled with unknowns. Dave was the one who would read Clive Cussler and Stephen King into the wee hours, who’d watch all eight weeks of an eight-week miniseries, content to wait a month and a half for the story’s resolution. Me, I went for the TV Guide recap, the fast way to cut to the quick and eliminate anything extraneous.

      I thought I’d lived my life the same way.

      Until this week.

      But as I sat in my kitchen, looking around at the sage-green room Dave and I had painted on a sunny afternoon last month, I realized I was living in a house filled with questions, not memories. There wasn’t a corner of this house, a picture on the wall, that I could look at and not feel the doubts crowding in, jostling around in the spaces of my mind. Was any of it real? Or was I just clueless?

      All I wanted to do was return to the life I’d recognized. Not run СКАЧАТЬ