Tips for Living Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Renée Shafransky

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542048118 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542048117 (paperback)

  ISBN-13: 9781503949225 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503949222 (hardcover)

  Cover design by Kimberly Glyder

  First Edition

  For Nick

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  From the Pequod Courier Tips for Living

  Chapter One

  From the Pequod Courier Tips for Living

  Chapter Two

  From the New York Journal Picks of the Week: Hugh Walker’s

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  From the Pequod Courier Letters to the Editor

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  From the Pequod Courier Letters to the Editor

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Pitch this after…

  Chapter Eleven

  From the Pequod Courier Letters to the Editor

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Diary entry…

  Chapter Fourteen

  From the Pequod Courier Letters to the Editor

  Chapter Fifteen

  From the Pequod Courier Obituaries, cont’d from page 11

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  From the Pequod Courier Tips for Living

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

  —Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  From the Pequod Courier

  Tips for Living

  by Nora Glasser

  Reasons to Leave the House

  Residents of Pequod (Formerly Known as Middle Class): You’ve seen your property taxes climb astronomically this year, right? Thank the superwealthy city folk who have “discovered” our town. They’re purchasing modest summer homes, renovating them into multi-million-dollar estates and driving property values sky-high. Developers offering deluxe waterside condos court more of the rich and fabulous. Meanwhile, you’re transferring debt from one credit card to another so you can keep the roof over your head. So why not Airbnb your home for a profit to old-fashioned summer renters? They’ll pay thousands for a decent city escape they can share with a dozen friends. You’ll only have to replace your furniture and plumbing when they depart. “Good idea,” you say, “but where will my family live in the interim?” How about those storage units out near the expressway? Lease one and put in an air bed. Set up a kitchen with a minifridge and microwave. Revive the chamber pot. Learn the time-tested skills of a homeless person. Think outside the box. Or live in one.

  Chapter One

  Helene Westing, the woman my ex-husband had an affair with and impregnated while we were married, joined my Pilates mat class a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Let me say that again. Helene Westing, the woman my ex-husband had an affair with and impregnated while we were married, joined my Pilates mat class a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I was there first, lying on my back. Just like with my husband.

  Off-the-chart stress.

  My Pilates teacher had been admiring my money socks—black with green dollar signs—when I heard the door open behind me. I bought the socks hoping to show money that it was welcome in my world, since money had made itself scarce after my divorce three years ago.

  “Cool socks, Nora,” Kelly said, going from standing on her mat in front of the class to sitting on it cross-legged in one smooth move—doubly impressive because Kelly’s center of gravity had recently shifted. She was almost six months along and glowing with surging pregnancy hormones. Even her high, jet-black ponytail had developed a goddesslike sheen. It swung around gaily as she turned her head toward the door and chirped through the mike on her headset.

  “Welcome! You must be the person who called yesterday. Helene, right?”

  I tried to camouflage my gasp with a cough as Helene passed by close enough for me to smell her: L’Occitane Jasmin, a scent I used to wear. She stopped short and looked right at me for a second, then sniffed before smiling at Kelly and moving on.

  “Sorry I’m late. I misjudged the drive time.”

  If Helene was fazed, I couldn’t see it. She calmly laid out her mat and followed Kelly’s instructions on how to engage her core. But her presence really shook me; I could barely focus on the class. Torturous memories of Hugh’s betrayal came rushing back. The strand of blonde hair on my pillowcase. Blonde? The pair of maroon lace panties balled up under my bedroom dresser. Maroon. My stomach turning at the realization that this meant Hugh must be having an affair of such passion and abandon that he’d invited his golden-haired mistress into our bed and ravished her so thoroughly she’d forgotten to put on her underwear before she left.

  I have to concede there were signs that Hugh had strayed before. There were certainly signs. I found a postcard of Olympia, the reclining nude by Manet, in our mailbox after Hugh returned from teaching a painting seminar in Philadelphia. On the back, no address or signature—just a phone number and two words: “Call me.” Hugh claimed he had no idea who sent the card. He threw it away. Still, I paid close attention. No noticeable change in his behavior. No trips to Philly. Nothing suspicious at all. I convinced myself he hadn’t crossed the line. But afterward I couldn’t stop noticing the young women who hung on his words at parties and openings and gazed at him with moon eyes. Like I did when I was twenty-five and went to see his painting show in Chelsea.

  Hugh Walker: New York Portraits. That was the show’s title. Hugh was well on his way to art stardom then. I learned from his gallery bio that he was forty-three and from Virginia, and that he’d already shown his work at the Museum of Modern Art. The portraits were of his reflection in various store windows in the city’s richest and poorest neighborhoods—from Tribeca to East Harlem. They were done in oil and awash in different glazes, which gave them a hazy, luminous effect. They were brilliant, I thought.

  The moment Hugh entered the gallery, I recognized him from his paintings. He was tall and rakish, wearing khakis and a white Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He flashed me a charming, crooked grin before walking over to the reception desk to talk to the staff, and I found myself wishing I’d put on a sexier pair of jeans that morning. Between his clothes, wavy dark hair and brown eyes, I thought he looked like Jack Kerouac in the Kerouac Wore Khakis Gap ad.

  After he finished at the reception desk, he headed straight for me. My pulse rate spiked. He introduced himself in a honeyed Southern accent and offered his hand. I felt the flutter in my chest as soon as our skin touched.

  “Hello. I’m Hugh Walker. And you are?”

  “Nora Glasser.”

  “May I ask what you think of the paintings, Nora Glasser?”

  “I think they’re beautiful and com
plex. Ethereal and political at the same time,” I said. And then an irreverent urge took over. “But I have some not-so-great news.”

  “Oh?”

  “They’re out of focus.”

  Without missing a beat, Hugh’s expression turned somber. He nodded and frowned. “Yes. I’m afraid I was experimenting with a new process. I put Vaseline in my eyes when I painted them.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  He winked and cracked another irresistible smile. “So were you.”

  I was practically melting from the heat we were generating.

  Once we started sleeping together, Hugh began painting me. After The Nora Series showed in New York, his career skyrocketed. He called me his muse. “You’re my dark, beautiful Jewess,” he said. There was no one I’d rather spend time with. From then on, Hugh’s was the first and last voice I heard almost every day for more than a decade. We were the passionate couple. We were the couple who loved to debrief in bed at night, feet entwined. “You first,” he’d insist. “Tell me everything.” If I occasionally expressed worry about the women who flirted with him? Hugh reassured me. He even invoked Paul Newman’s famous quip on fidelity.

  “Nora, why would I go out for a hamburger when I’ve got steak at home?”

  We’d just come back from a vacation in Rome—sorely needed after my second fertility treatment failed—the week before the maroon panties and blonde hair detonated in our bedroom. I became so depressed afterward that I slept for the better part of four days. Finally, rising like Lazarus, I dragged myself into the kitchen so Hugh could tell me one more time that it was “a fling,” that I was “the one.” Apparently he met the woman, an art school grad student, while he was opening a gallery show in Austin.

  “You were visiting your aunt when she called. She was in New York for the week and asked to drop over and see my new work,” he said. “She brought wine. I had too much, Nora. Before I knew what was happening she . . . I’m sorry. Please, don’t let this wreck what we have. Please. I don’t care about her. I don’t care about her at all.”

  I wanted to believe we would make it through. Please don’t let this wreck what we have. I read books on how to heal from the trauma of sexual betrayal. “Don’t expect miracles.” “Rebuilding trust takes time.” “Whatever you do, don’t ask for details,” they advised. During my long, emotional talks with Hugh, I tried to stay away from these land mines. “He succumbed from all the baby-making stress,” I rationalized, and began to inch toward forgiveness. But less than six months later, as I was rummaging around his studio to find the zester that had gone missing (Hugh was forever borrowing kitchen utensils to achieve new and interesting textures with paint), I abandoned all hope.

  Behind the antique Japanese screen that hid Hugh’s paint-stained industrial sink, I saw the canvas leaning against the wall. It was an obvious takeoff on Annie Leibovitz’s famed Rolling Stone cover—the one with naked John Lennon curled up in a fetal position around fully dressed Yoko. In this version, it was Hugh who was naked. And he was wrapped around a roundly pregnant Helene.

  I stared at the painting, barely able to breathe, my body collapsing into its own fetal curl on the floor. This is not fixable. From this we can never recover. He’s stuck a knife in my womb and I am bleeding to death. This is dying. Then I heard the studio door open and the floorboards creak behind me.

  “Nora, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “But I wanted a baby. That was my baby. You broke us. And you broke my heart.”

  I made a silent vow that day in Hugh’s studio: I will come back to life no matter how long it takes, and I won’t be a bitter, angry woman.

  Easier said. I started having violent fantasies of mowing Hugh and Helene down with a car. Then I was pulling a pistol out of my trench coat pocket like some 1940s gun moll and shooting them in their bed in flagrante delicto, which was more visceral and satisfying. I played that fantasy over and over again in my mind. It was so upsetting that I started seeing a therapist. Dr. Feld was the only one besides Hugh (and maybe Helene if he’d shared) who knew I’d actually drawn blood.

  “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?” Dr. Feld had asked, looking at me gravely during our first session, pen poised to write on his yellow legal pad.

  “I attacked Hugh’s work. Physically.”

  “When was this?”

  “After I saw that painting in his studio. I couldn’t get off the floor at first, I was so upset. Hugh kept saying we had to talk about this calmly. He kept calling the baby a ‘mistake.’ He said he didn’t plan to get Helene pregnant, but it happened and she made the decision to keep it. He was waiting to tell me until after the baby was born. He thought I would be open to ‘an arrangement’ once I saw the child.”

  “What kind of arrangement?”

  “He wanted me to go on living with him and become some sort of stepmother. ‘Since you can’t seem to get pregnant,’ he said. We’d been trying. My ovaries weren’t cooperating.”

  “You must’ve been very hurt.”

  “I was devastated. I accused him of sadism. He argued that I was being ‘bourgeois and narrow-minded.’ He said, ‘Europeans make these arrangements all the time.’ Correct me if I’m wrong, Dr. Feld, but isn’t it usually the wife who bears the child? Not the mistress?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not an expert on that.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “About the violence . . .”

  “Yes. Well, I finally got off the floor. I saw Hugh starting to boil water for tea on his hot plate, as if we were a couple of Brits who could have a civilized conversation about how to handle this over a pot of Earl Grey. I looked at that painting of him with Helene again, and I actually saw red. It’s real. That happens. The entire room went crimson. I picked up the nearest thing I could find to a weapon—the X-ACTO on his worktable—and I lunged. He grabbed my wrist before the blade touched the canvas. I accidentally nicked his hand.”

  Dr. Feld scribbled on his pad.

  “How did he react?”

  “‘You’re hysterical,’ he said. I guess I was. But the thing is, I still have fantasies.”

  “Of what nature?”

  I hesitated. Dr. Feld cocked his head.

  “Of hurting both of them.”

  Dr. Feld wrote on his pad some more.

  “What you said about being obligated to inform the authorities if I’m a danger to others or myself? You’re not going to report me for having fantasies, are you?”

  “No. But it would be good to explore some of that anger in here instead of acting it out.”

  “Can you say how many sessions you think we’ll need? I’m worried about money. The meeting with my divorce lawyer was kind of a shock.”

  “How so?”

  “Hugh and I lived together for over twelve years, but we’d only been married for one. It means the settlement won’t be all that much. Between paying the lawyer, moving out of the loft, and covering living expenses until I find a job . . .” I sighed and shook my head, resigned. “Still, I don’t want to spend years fighting for palimony.”

  “You’d rather move on.”

  “Right.”

  At $150 each visit, I couldn’t afford to see Dr. Feld for very long, but at least I’d regained my equilibrium. I’m afraid that since Hugh and Helene moved to Pequod this May, I’ve begun to backslide. Some days I could swear there’s a volcano in my chest. The energy I expend to keep it from erupting can exhaust me. I often feel depressed. But I make sure to renew my vow every day: I absolutely will not let anger destroy my life.

  “The nerve of that woman,” Grace huffed as we walked out of class down the corridor that led to the parking lot outside.

  Grace Sliwa has been like a sister to me for twenty-three years, ever since we were freshman roommates at NYU. We even look like sisters. We both have long brown hair, oval faces, and prominent cheekbones passed down from ancestors who came from the same general part of the world: Grace is of Czech descent;
my people hail from the Jewish ghettos of western Russia. We’re both taller than average and long-waisted. “Modigliani model types,” Hugh once observed. But my eyes are brown and Grace’s are bright blue. She wears her hair straight and parted on the side. I favor a tousled, “sauvage” look with bangs. Grace doesn’t need an excuse to put on a skirt or a dress. I’m happy in jeans 90 percent of the time.

  Smart, talented, beautiful Grace also has a voice that purrs sex, which she uses to great effect on her interview show, Talk of the Townies, produced at WPQD here in Pequod and carried regionally on public radio.

  “What she should have done the second she saw you in class, if she had a decent bone in her body, was leave,” she hissed.

  One of the qualities I admire most in Grace is her loyalty. She’s as loyal as Lassie. After Hugh and I divorced, she wouldn’t even deign to do a phone interview with him. Believe me, it would’ve been a coup for her, given who Hugh was. Grace was the only one of my friends who refused to talk to Hugh, fame or no fame, because of what he pulled with Helene.

  “If I were you, I’d want to kill,” she fumed.

  Grace zipped up her fleece and took my arm as we emerged from the large, slate-colored concrete building into the chilly November morning. We steered toward our cars, parked side by side in the lot.

  “So what are we going to do?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We can’t let that woman stay in class. There must be a way to get rid of her,” she said, releasing me to open the back door of her Prius and toss her mat over a booster seat full of toys. Grace has two wonderful boys, two adorable munchkins—my godsons. After the first one was born, she and her family decamped to Pequod from Manhattan, intent on raising their kids outside the city. Her husband, Mac, grew up here.

  “We need to have her banned,” Grace said, turning back to the building. “Maybe we should go in there and tell Kelly and the rest of them what she’s done . . .”

  “No,” I said firmly. “You know word will spread. I can’t handle being the subject of gossip again. Remember when New York Magazine ran that paparazzi shot of Hugh and Helene, pregnant Helene, alongside my wedding photo? I was completely humiliated. I don’t want to be a hot topic here.”