The Sweetest Revenge Read online

  “Someone ordered that and then backed out,” the saleswoman said. “I can give you a good deal on it.”

  “How much?” I asked, though I already knew I’d be buying it.

  “Eighteen hundred dollars,” she said.

  “Can you deliver it Saturday afternoon around four?”

  “I’m sure we can arrange that,” she said.

  “I need something to put my television on,” I told her. “Do you have something you can show me?”

  The saleswoman, Ruth, I had learned by that point, showed me several pieces, all made in Hickory. I chose a large cherry wood cabinet that had sliding doors to hide the television—not something I envisioned doing much—with cabinets below it and shelves on either side. It looked like it would fit in the space where the TV currently stood in its primitive cupboard.

  I had to remove everything from dressers and other pieces of furniture that would be in the estate sale. That took a lot of effort. By the end of the week, my foot was aching. I took a painkiller leftover from the early days of my injury and fell asleep.

  When Rudolf arrived with an assistant, Nancy, on Saturday morning, I was ready.

  “I’m not selling the television,” I said. “Can you help me move it to the spare room?”

  With some effort, Rudolf moved the flat screen up the stairs and into the room. He was sweating and huffing when he came back downstairs.

  Then it was time for me to leave. I grabbed my jewelry box and put it in my trunk. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go for four hours, but I couldn’t hang around and watch people paw through my belongings. I went to the library and thumbed through magazines for a while. Then I browsed the shelves and chose a few novels, which I doubted I would ever read. Only two hours had passed. It was time to see The Lone Ranger.

  I thought the movie was good, though it was hard to see Johnny Depp’s incredible looks through all the make-up and with a dead crow on his head. But it was an exciting movie and a good distraction for me, though my mind did wander sometimes, envisioning people in my house, buying my precious belongings.

  I returned to my house at two-thirty. The buyers were gone and Rudolf and Nancy were straightening up inside. The house was practically empty, like someone had moved in the middle of the night. Tears sprang to my eyes when I walked into the empty dining room with the silver tea set sitting on the hardwood floors, no longer with a home in the china cabinet. In the den, the mantle had been removed and the fireplace looked naked without it. A table in the corner still had a few pieces on top—ceramic bowls and vases mostly that Jim and I had found at flea markets. My wedding china had been sold along with the crystal.

  I burst into tears. My former life didn’t exist anymore and it hit me harder than I thought it would.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Sullivan,” Rudolf asked. The concern in his voice was genuine.

  “I just didn’t think it would hit me like this,” I said.

  “I know,” he said soothingly. “I’ve seen this lots of times. It might make you feel better to know we made nearly twenty-five thousand today. After our twenty percent commission, you’ll be getting nearly twenty-one thousand dollars.”

  My tears started to dry. That did make me feel better.

  Rudolf handed me a check and I said goodbye. It wouldn’t be long before my new furniture, the beginning of my new life, would arrive. I got Midnight out of the cat carrier in the spare room, where she had been since I left the house. She followed me through the rooms, meowing her displeasure. There wasn’t anywhere to sit but the floor!

  The couch and console arrived at four fifteen. The cherry console barely fit in the area next to the fireplace. The delivery guys got my TV from the spare room and set it back up. After they left, I sank onto the chaise of the new couch. Midnight jumped up and rubbed her face all over my stomach. Poor girl. She was traumatized.

  And that’s how it was for several days. I had no furniture and I had no food to speak of. I ate my last can of tuna and Midnight ate her last can of Fancy Feast, soufflé with wild salmon, on Monday night. I wasn’t sure who was getting the better meal. I had an appointment with Janice the next day and vowed a major trip to the grocery store after that.

  The next afternoon, I sat in Janice’s well-appointed office and gave her all the details of my employment and my ultimate termination. She took notes on a legal pad. When we were finished, she said, “We’ll start working on the complaint for this. It should be ready next week. My fee is three hundred dollars an hours.”

  I forced myself not to flinch. “Okay,” I said getting up to leave.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Janice said.

  And then I really had nothing to do but wait.

  Chapter Eleven

  I slept on my new couch for several days before I dragged myself out to buy a new bed. I got a queen-sized plush top bed that was delivered the same day I bought it. I ordered expensive new sheets and a light down-alternative comforter, like the one in my dream, from the Company Store on the Internet.

  My clothes were in piles on the floor, so I stopped by the furniture store and bought a dresser for my bedroom. Ruth was happy to see me.

  I re-hung the paintings that I kept in the empty dining room, the sitting room, and the den. I moved the few knick-knacks I still had to the shelves of my new console. I placed my cherished books on the shelves. A lot of Jim’s books had sold in the estate sale, and I had thrown the rest of them away.

  I called a painter I found on the Internet. Over the course of two weeks, he and his crew repainted every single room in the house. I even had them paint the cream cabinets in the kitchen a medium gray color and refit the doors with new hardware. I told Jerry, the head painter and owner of the company, that I wanted to paint the outside soon. A nice pewter gray, I said.

  The rest of the furniture would have to evolve over time. I had a couch to sit on, a TV to watch, a bed to sleep in, a place to put my clothes. It was enough for the moment.

  Carly called me once. “They told me I’m not allowed to contact you,” she said. “But I needed to see how you’re doing. I worry about you.”

  “Carly,” I said. “You are so sweet to call me. I don’t want you to compromise yourself or your job by talking to me.”

  “I know,” she said. “I just need to know you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay. I appreciate your calling more than I can say. Thank you.”

  I cried a little after I hung up from Carly. She had really taken a big risk to call me. I realized that someone in that town gave a damn about me.

  A month later, my limp was gone and I was wearing my size twelves that I had hung onto. But even they were beginning to droop on me. I had no idea how much weight I had lost and I refused to weigh on the cruel scales. In fact, I picked them up one morning and threw them in the garbage. I hated those digital scales that had haunted me for years. Hated them.

  Wearing my Levi’s and a turquoise top I found in the inner sanctum of my closet, I decided to go to the garden center and buy some flowers. It was late September and the weather was beginning to cool and the feel of fall was in the air. I was wandering through the aisles of the garden center, putting chrysanthemums in my basket, when I saw him. Or them, I should say.

  Jim and Kimberly were at the end of the aisle I was on, looking at some fruit trees. I knew she was still a visiting professor until the end of the fall semester. Where she would go after that, I had no idea. I had relished the thought of her leaving Jim behind while she pursued her art and academic career. The thought of him being left alone after giving everything up with me had gotten me through many a night.

  I turned my head so they wouldn’t see me. But I couldn’t resist glancing over at them every few seconds. Why were they looking at fruit trees? That was the kind of item you bought when you were putting down roots, not a temporary kind of plant at all. Was Kimberly going to stay in town? That made me heartsick.

  And then Jim looked my way. I saw the look of surprise on his fa
ce. His smile quivered, then dropped until his lips were in a straight line. I turned my head again. I left my basket of flowers and walked all the way through the store and out the other side before circling back around to my car.

  I sat in my car and cried. I had imagined Jim with Kimberly many times, had tortured myself with visions of their life, their lovemaking. But seeing them together in person was worse than any of those visions. In person, they were a real couple, out buying things together. For their house.

  Like Jim and I used to do.

  After I had collected myself, I drove to the grocery store and went down the aisles in a frenzy, buying food like I had when Jim was still there. I hauled the grocery bags inside and started making lasagna before I even put the groceries up. Hours later, when the lasagna was bubbling and the fresh mozzarella was oozing on top, I cut a piece. I ate the entire piece ravenously, like I hadn’t eaten in a week.

  It was too much for me. I was so full after I ate, that I threw up. I guess I had just needed to know that I could still do it, that I was still a good cook even if there was no one to cook for anymore. I cut the rest of the lasagna into individual pieces and froze them for later. I didn’t know when I’d be able to eat it again.

  I checked my email before settling in for the night. I don’t know why I still bothered to do that. I rarely got email, except from my parents. But that evening, there was an email from Jim.

  “Was that you I saw at the garden center today?” he wrote. “I barely recognized you. You’ve lost so much weight, it took me back in time.”

  Bastard. I didn’t respond to him.

  I was beginning to realize that there was no reason for me to stay in Marshall. I no longer had a job or a husband. Or any friends. My parents had left five years earlier. My prospects for another job were limited since the university was the main provider in Marshall, and they had fired me. I wished I had been clear-headed enough earlier on to realize this. Back when I had the house on the market. With the alimony money, plus the investments, plus the money from the sale of the house, I really could live anywhere I wanted to. Even if it meant uprooting Midnight. I could find a place that would allow her to be outdoors, once we were settled.

  I was definitely going to have to leave Marshall. There was no longer any question in my mind.

  And then Janice called me.

  “I’ve gotten a call from the vice president of development, Steve Harrell,” she said. “You’re not gonna believe this, but the university wants to give you back your job. Well, actually, they want to make you vice president of communications.”

  “What?” That’s all I could think of to say, I was so shocked.

  “They want to give you double what you were making.”

  “Why?” I finally said.

  “Mr. Harrell said that Sheila fired you without authority,” Janice said. “If you don’t make this deal, we’ll get a great settlement out of it. They’ve already admitted to wrongdoing.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Me either,” Sheila said. “But the Mr. Harrell wants to meet with us. Can you go tomorrow at two?”

  “I’m not sure I want to go,” I said. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Why the university had done such an about-face.

  “I can tell them that,” Janice said. “We can continue with the suit and make a ton of money.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to know why this is happening. I want to meet with Steve.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you tomorrow at his office at two.”

  As soon as I hung up from Janice, I got in the car and drove to an area close to the university that had bars and restaurants and a hair salon that I had passed many times. Hair Art had a big sign outside that said Walk-ins Welcome. I walked in.

  I sat in the chair facing myself in the big mirror. I looked at myself for the first time in a long time. Gone was my double chin. Gone were my puffy cheeks. I was looking at the me that I had been, years before.

  Bridget removed the comb from my hair and brushed it out. She led me to a sink and washed my hair. The warm water felt so soothing. It had been so long since anyone but Midnight had touched me. She wrapped a towel around my hair and led me back to the chair.

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for today,” Bridget said, “but you’ve got some fantastic natural wave that I’d like to take advantage of with some point cutting.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s where we make little snips into your hair to bring out your curls. Believe me, you’ll be happy with it. Unless you want to go straight and don’t want the waves, of course.”

  “No, let’s go with the waves,” I said. I’d never had a hairdresser that wanted to cut my hair paying attention to how my hair really was. They always wanted to cut more blunt styles that required me to use a lot of products to keep it straight.

  Bridget snipped away, cutting my long hair. Then she turned me away from the mirror, thankfully because I was sick of looking at myself, and dried it very carefully with a low-heat setting. She sprayed my hair with a sweet-smelling hairspray.

  When she swiveled the chair back to face the mirror, I was shocked. Pleased, but shocked. My hair shimmered in waves to just below my shoulders. It framed my face in a way that was very flattering. I teared up to see myself looking so good, but I tried to hide it.

  “Thank you, Bridget,” I said. I almost choked. Bridget looked very pleased with herself.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For giving me a good head of hair to work with.” That girl was going to get a huge tip from me.

  Bridget led me to the manicure and pedicure room, and I got both. The manicurist gel-coated my fingernails in a subtle shade of coral and matched it on my toenails. When I left, the bill was a hundred dollars. I gave Bridget a tip of thirty dollars and the manicurist one of ten dollars. Bridget watched me walk out and mouthed “Thank you” to me. I smiled at her and waved goodbye.

  Then came the hardest part. I needed to have something to wear. I had no idea what I could squeeze myself into, but I knew it wouldn’t be my size 1X black suit. I went into the spare bedroom, a place I avoided but the place where I had a lot of my old clothes. I pulled several suits from the closet and carried them into my bedroom where I threw them on the bed.

  One thing I knew was that red was a power color. I picked up the deep red suit I had worn ten years ago, before I got so fat. I pulled the pants on and they zipped easily. I put the jacket on without a top and buttoned it. Only then did I look at myself in the full-length mirror behind the bedroom door. I couldn’t believe the person that looked back at me. It was the person I used to be. I was wearing a size ten again. I had lost the fat that I truly believed was the weight of my cheating, inattentive, unloving husband.

  I sat on the bed and giggled for a moment in sheer joy. Then I found a white tank top to wear underneath the jacket. The pants were dragging, so I foraged in the spare room closet for the black heels I used to wear all the time. I went through several shoeboxes of shoes I was going to revisit in the near future before I found the pair I was looking for. Silky black heels. I put them on and my pants were no longer dragging. I walked unsteadily into my bedroom. It had been a while since I’d worn heels.

  I looked at my full outfit in the mirror. My hair fell softly around my face and to my shoulders. I allowed myself to squeal in delight.

  I hung the suit up carefully and put my jeans back on. But I put the heels back on so I could practice walking in them. It was an art. I kept them on as I made a salad for supper. I kept them on for two hours as I did laundry and cleaned the kitchen. By the time I went to bed, I felt comfortable in them again.

  The next day, D-Day, I shampooed my hair. I was worried I couldn’t get it looking the way Bridget had, but it all fell naturally into place. That girl was a marvel. I gently blowed it dry and the waves fell magnificently. I sprayed it, as Bridget had done. I applied a little make-up. Not much. Some blush, some gray eye shadow, some mascar
a and a very faint line of eyeliner. I glossed my lips with a subtle shade of red.

  I literally strode into the administration building. Janice was waiting for me right inside the big glass doors.

  “You’ve been hiding yourself,” she exclaimed.

  “I guess so,” I said, pleased.

  We took the elevator to the third floor where the vice presidents offices were. Janice told the receptionist that we were there by appointment with Mr. Harrell. We only sat for a moment before we were called back.

  “Amy,” Steve Harrell said, holding out his hand. “It’s good to see you.”

  I shook his hand, then he shook Janice’s hand. “Steve Harrell,” he said to her smiling his big development smile.

  We sat in the leather chairs across from his big desk. We looked at him, waiting.

  “Amy,” Steve said. “We have done you a disservice. Sheila terminated your employment without approval from her supervisor. That would be me.”

  “I don’t understand how she could have done that without permission,” I said. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  Steve looked a little uneasy, but he continued. “I know it’s hard to understand,” he said. “But it’s true she did that. I was quite shocked when I found out.”

  “What does Sheila have to say?” I asked.

  “Well, Sheila is no longer with the university,” Steve said. “She decided to move to a different situation at another state college.”

  “Oh,” I said. I wondered what that was all about.

  “What we’re offering you, Amy,” Steve said, “is double your former salary. That puts it at one hundred and ten thousand dollars. We’re also creating a new position of Vice President of Advancement slash Communications, which we are offering you.”

  “I need to talk to Janice alone,” I said.

  Steve stood up from behind his desk. “Please use my office,” he said walking out.

  I looked over at Janice. She was grinning.