“Here. Drink this.”
Dani hands me a glass of white wine filled to the brim. I’m lying on her sofa with a washcloth on my forehead that she soaked in ice water. My bare feet are propped up on a pillow. An open bag of Cool Ranch Doritos rests on my chest. I take the glass from her, lift my head, and guzzle half of it in one go.
Sitting on the other side of the room in a recliner, her father-in-law stares at me with an expression of extreme suspicion, as if I’m an IRS agent who’s here to auction off the house.
Apparently, he doesn’t remember me.
I wish I could borrow some of that.
Ignoring him, I hand the glass back to Dani. She sits on the wooden coffee table and puts the glass down beside her. Clasping her hands between her thighs, she says, “Let’s go over this again. You’re telling me Callum saw you in your Catwoman costume at that Halloween party and became so obsessed with you after you rejected him that he spent the next five years orchestrating an elaborate scheme to ruin your life so you’d agree to marry him?”
“That’s it in a nutshell.”
“Wow.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “What do you mean wow? And why do you sound impressed?”
She pulls a face. “You have to admit it is kind of impressive.”
“No, I don’t have to admit any such thing. It’s insane is what it is!”
She hands me the glass of wine, which is probably just to get me to stop shouting. It works, anyway. I finish the rest of the wine, then stuff a few Doritos in my mouth to wash them down with.
Taking the empty glass from me, she says in a soothing tone, “I’m not disagreeing that it’s crazy. The man is definitely certifiable. I’m just saying that it took an impressive amount of dedication to pull it off.”
“If you say the word impressive one more time, I will grind the rest of this bag of Doritos into your white carpeting.”
“I can’t believe what he said about Ben, though. He cheated on you? What a sleazebag.”
“It was just another lie.” I groan, remembering the look of terror on Ben’s face when he saw my wedding ring the day I ran into him at ValUBooks. “Oh my God, Callum put a knife to his throat! The poor guy!”
Dani’s father-in-law grunts. “What a pussy.”
Dani says, “Dad!”
He waves her off with a grumble. “If a man tucks his tail between his legs and runs when another man threatens him, he’s a pussy. Good riddance. Count your blessings you didn’t end up with that nincompoop, girl.”
I stare at him. “I thought you were supposed to be deaf?”
He blinks, squints at me, and raises a hand to cup one ear. “Eh?”
“Never mind him, Em, let’s focus on you.” Dani pats my hand. “What happens now?”
Sighing, I close my eyes. “Now I divorce him.”
When the silence stretches on too long, I glance over at Dani. She’s looking back at me with her lips pulled between her teeth.
“What’s that face?”
“I’m so sorry, and please forgive me for being selfish when your entire life is a dumpster fire, but…”
“But what?”
“I guess Ryan will have to start looking for another job now.”
“No, because I’m going to tell Callum that if he fires Ryan, I’ll go to the media and expose him for the manipulative con artist that he is.”
“You said you were never going to speak to him again.”
“You’re right. I’ll send him a text message.”
We stare at each other until I say, “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to be a supportive friend but you really have a bunch of stuff to say that you think I won’t like so you’re not saying it?”
“Because I am. And I do. And you won’t.”
“I’m going to need more wine for this.”
She rises, heads to the kitchen, refills my wineglass, and returns. Handing it to me, she says, “Okay, keep an open mind now.”
I mutter, “This should be interesting.”
“Drink your wine and be quiet. I’m going to throw a bunch of different things out there that might not make sense but you know I think by talking, so hang in there. Here we go. The giant tattoo of your name on Callum’s back.”
She makes googly eyes at me.
I sigh and drink more wine.
“The signed copy of your favorite book. All the priceless first editions. The enormous engagement ring. What he said to his brother about seeing his future in your eyes. What he said to you about diving into your ocean. Twenty million dollars. Twenty million dollars.”
“You said that last one twice. And I regret telling you about the lovey-dovey BS he spewed, because you’re too much of a romantic.”
“You want to talk about all the amazing sex you two had instead?”
“I never told you anything about our sex life.”
“So it was awful? No connection there, huh? You didn’t feel a thing?”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Dani? Did he pay you to be on his side or something? The man lied to me—to my face—about everything!”
Her father-in-law cackles. “For twenty million bucks, I’d let him lie to me too.”
Dani scolds, “Dad.”
He clucks his tongue. “He’s a man. He did what he had to do to get what he wanted. You’re just mad you found out.”
I glare at him. “Excuse me for not taking life advice from a man who shouts obscenities at Vanna White for a hobby. And for the record, if it wasn’t for him having all that money, everyone would agree he should be in jail for stalking.”
“The money and the face. And the body too,” says Dani, as if that’s at all helpful.
This is when I remember all the nice things I said to him about his character, and wish I could go back in time and punch myself in the nose.
Dani’s house phone rings. She goes into the kitchen to answer it. When she turns and looks at me with wide eyes, I know who it is.
“I’m not here!” I sit upright, dislodging the bag of Doritos so it falls to the floor and sprays chips everywhere. The washcloth falls off my forehead and lands on top of the chips.
“Uh, she’s not here. Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you too. Bye.”
She hangs up and looks at me with an expression of guilt.
“That was the shittiest lie telling I’ve ever witnessed. Was it Callum?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He thanked me for taking care of you.”
“I can tell that’s not it by that puppy-dog face you’re making. What else?”
“You won’t like it.”
“Dani!”
“He said to tell you that he was going to confess everything eventually but he wanted to give you time to fall in love with him first. Also that he adores you, and he’ll do anything you want to make up for it.’
The look on her face makes me glower. “Don’t you dare think this is romantic.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to. I can see you swooning from over here. He lied to me.”
“I know.”
“You don’t look like you know.”
Sighing, she returns to sit on the coffee table. “He was wrong. I get that. You can’t trust him now, and without trust, you can’t have a relationship.”
“Exactly!”
“But if I had a rich, gorgeous husband who bent himself into a pretzel because he was so madly in love with me, he couldn’t think of anything else, I’d probably take a minute to evaluate the situation to see how I could benefit from it before I threw the baby out with the bath water.”
Dani’s father-in-law says, “Amen.”
We both turn to him and say, “Be quiet!”
The house phone rings again. Before I can give her a stern warning, Dani holds up her hands. “I know, I know, you’re not here.”
But when she answers the phone, it’s not Callum. It’s Murph, calling from the shop.
Dani hands me the cordless receiver. I take it, terrified of what he might be about to say.
It turns out, it’s worse than I could have ever expected.
“Emery, your attorney called. He says you need to call him back immediately.”
“I will. Wait, how did you know I was here?”
“Callum called the shop to tell me that I could find you at Dani’s today in case of an emergency.”
Grinding my molars, I hang up on him and curse Callum’s name. He probably had a tracker installed on my car, the maniac.
Then I call the lawyer and listen in growing shock as he delivers his news.
“When I received your fax, the first thing I did was visit the LA County Registrar-Recorder’s website to get the date of your marriage so I could forward that to the family law attorney I was going to refer you to. But there was no record of any marriage for either you or Mr. McCord.”
He pauses, giving me a chance to speak, but I’m speechless. I don’t know where this is going, only that it will be bad.
“So then I had my assistant check the registrar databases for the other forty-nine states and US territories. No hits there either. Then we went internationally through the Department of State website.”
He pauses. I want to scream And! but my mouth has gone dry.
“And that’s how we found what we were looking for.”
I must make some sort of sound of acknowledgement, because the attorney continues.
“Your marriage was recorded in Rome. Vatican City, to be specific.”
I find the will to speak and say, “But we weren’t married there. I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand it, either, but the documents were correctly filled out and filed. A local official signed off on the paperwork. Everything is in order.”
I remember what a blur the wedding ceremony in the store was that day, how Callum rushed me and that I barely glimpsed the paperwork I signed, and my stomach turns over.
“So that means I have to get a divorce attorney over there to handle it?”
“No. There aren’t any divorce attorneys in Vatican City.”
“Why not?”
“Because divorce is prohibited there by law.”
Oh my God. The Irrevocability clause in the wedding contract.
All that wine I drank is about to make a dramatic reappearance.
I jolt to my feet and shout into the phone, “You’re telling me I have to stay married to him?”
“For the time being, yes. I’ll have to find an expert in international matrimonial law to unravel this, but most likely, it will take a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“If it can be done at all, which is a big if…years.”
Years.
“We’ll have to claim fraud and prove it. You should prepare yourself for a long and ugly fight. And considering the financial resources of your husband, if he decides to contest it…”
He doesn’t have to finish that statement.
We both know I’m fucked.
That bastard checkmated me before I even knew the game we were playing.
