True Love and Other Disasters

That night, the Chinooks won their second of three against the Sharks. Faith chose to attend a benefit instead and skipped the game. She and Virgil had bought tickets to the thousand-dollar-a-plate event the previous summer. She decided to go by herself and participate in the silent auction to raise money for Doctors Without Borders.

She dressed in her black Donna Karan sheath and hung a string of opera-length pearls around her neck. When she walked into the ballroom at the Four Seasons, she spotted several women she knew from the Gloria Thornwell Society. They turned their faces as if they didn’t know her. The glittering chandeliers shined down on the Seattle elite as she grabbed a glass of Moet from a passing tray. Toward the front of the room, Landon and his wife stood in a circle of Virgil’s close friends congratulating each other for one sort of acquisition or another. She raised the champagne to her lips and her gaze slid to the members of the Seattle Symphony, playing on a raised dais. She knew a lot of these people. Now, as she moved to the table displaying the silent auction items, she caught the gazes of the few trophy wives she’d associated with for five years. In their eyes she saw pity and fear as they turned away, afraid to make eye contact with their fate.

“Hello, Faith.”

She looked across her shoulder at the wife of Bruce Parsons, Jennifer Parsons, a trophy wife only slightly older than herself.

“Hi, Jennifer. You braved the crowd, I see.”

Jennifer smiled tightly. “How are you doing?”

“A little better. I still miss Virgil.”

They talked for a few short minutes, and in the end promised phone calls that would never be placed and lunch that would never happen.

When the dinner bell rang, she found herself at a table with Virgil’s empty seat beside her. Sadness at his absence settled next to her heart. He’d been a strong stabilizing influence in her life and she missed him. Now that he was gone, she had to be strong by herself.

Across the table, Landon and his wife, Ester, ignored her completely while silently transmitting their contempt in venomous waves. If Virgil were alive, he’d have expected her to paste a smile on her face and force them all to be civil. But frankly, she was tired of forcing polite behavior from Landon and Ester when they were in polite society. To some of the people in the room, she would always be a woman who took her clothes off for money. But there’d been some freedom in that life which had nothing to do with being naked and everything to do with not caring what people thought. There were only a few rungs lower on the social scale than a stripper.

While she ate a five-course meal that started with a braised short rib and red cabbage salad, she made small talk with those around her. By the time the fourth course was cleared from the table, she realized that she really just didn’t care anymore. Not about Landon and his wife, and not about people who would never accept her now that Virgil was gone. Since the funeral, her life had been different. In just one short month, it had drastically changed.

“I heard the Chinooks are still in the playoffs,” one of Virgil’s business associates commented from Faith’s left side. She leaned slightly forward and looked into Jerome Robinson’s kind brown eyes. “How’s the team looking?” he asked.

“We’re looking good,” she answered, as a panna cotta with fresh berries was set on the table before her. “Of course there was a huge concern once we lost Bressler, but Savage has stepped in and done a great job of keeping the team focused. Our goal was to give the players a few games before the playoffs to find their legs and adjust before we started shuffling the deck, but they’ve adjusted so well, there hasn’t been much shuffling.” Or so Coach Nystrom had said yesterday. She shrugged and lifted her dessert spoon. “Our front line has a combined twenty-three goals and eighty-nine points so far in the playoffs. I think we have a really good shot at the cup this year.” That, she’d figured out on her own.

Jerome smiled. “Virgil would be proud of you.”

She liked to think so. But more important, for the first time in her life she was proud of herself.

“My father was a senile old man,” Landon said from across the table.

“Your father was many things.” Jerome turned to Landon. “Senile was never one of them.”

Faith smiled and took a drink of her dessert wine. Once the dishes were cleared, she stayed just long enough to make a few silent bids. As she stood at the coat check, she realized that in the short month since Virgil’s death, she’d become more comfortable sitting in an Irish pub with a bunch of hockey players than with the people she’d associated with for the past five years. It wasn’t that all the Seattle elite were supercilious snobs. They weren’t. A lot of them were like Jerome. Nice people who just happened to have more money than God. It was more like Faith was different now; she was becoming someone else. Someone she didn’t know. She wasn’t a stripper or Playmate or a rich man’s wife anymore. The weirdest part about it was that even though she didn’t know the new Faith yet, she liked her.

By the time she got home, Valerie had returned from the hockey game, where she and Pavel had used the box to watch the Chinooks dominate in a 2–0 victory over the Sharks. Wednesday night’s game would be in San Jose, and if the Chinooks won, they would advance to the next round. If not, it was back to Seattle for Game Six.

“Pavel wanted me to thank you for the use of your skybox.”

“When you see him again, tell him he’s wel come,” Faith said and headed to her room. She went straight to bed feeling oddly at peace with her life. She slept like a log until around one, when Pebbles jumped on her bed and curled up against her stomach.

“What are you doing?” she asked the dog, her voice a bit sleep-drugged. “Get out.” Through the darkness Pebbles’s beady eyes looked up at her as a deep moan filtered into the room. Faith recognized that moan and the next one too. Obviously, Valerie and Pavel hadn’t found a hotel.

The next morning Pavel was gone, and Valerie acted as if he’d never been there. When Faith confronted her mother, Valerie promised to “be more quiet.”

“I thought you said something about going to a hotel,” she reminded her mother.

“Every night? That could get expensive.”

Every night? “You could go to his house.”

Valerie shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s living with Ty. Maybe when Ty’s on the road. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow.” She pulled off her chunky bracelets. “You don’t mind if he comes over Wednesday night and watches the game here with us, do you? I hate to think of him all alone with nothing but his big-screen TV.”

She wondered why her mother couldn’t go there. “I don’t really mind. Just as long as you didn’t make out like teenagers and plug in ‘Sexual Healing.’”

Valerie waved away her concern. “Pavel gets too engrossed in the game and can’t manage to pull himself away,” she said.

But the very next night, the two headed to Valerie’s bedroom during the first intermission.

“What are they doing?” Jules asked as he walked into the kitchen and reached for a section of the three foot- long sandwiches Faith had picked up at a local deli.

There was a large thump on the wall followed by deep laughter and a little giggle. “You don’t want to know.” Faith shook her head and bit into a deli pickle. “My mother and I have adopted the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.” She took a sip of her margarita and moved back into the living room. “At least I’m trying to make her follow it.” Pebbles lay in Faith’s spot on the couch with her feet sticking straight up in the air. “But like her dog, she doesn’t follow commands very well.”

Jules sat beside Pebbles and scratched the dog’s belly with his free hand. “You missed a good game the other night.”

She sat on the arm of the couch and looked across her shoulder into his green eyes. “I was at a benefit.” She thought of Landon and frowned. “Unfortunately, I won’t be going to many charity events. Landon and his friends have made me persona non grata.”

“If you want to participate in a charity event,”

Jules said between bites of his sandwich, “you should play in the Chinooks Foundation charity golf game this summer.”

“I’ve never heard of the Chinooks Foundation.”

“They have a charity golf game every year. I know they’d welcome you and it would be fun.”

Big boobs and golf didn’t go together. “No thanks. I’m better at chairing events and writing checks.”

“I know the foundation does other things to raise money too. I’ll look into it if you want me to.”