The Red Convertible

Brenda, my wife of twenty years, was going to turn forty. Sadly, many of the clichés you've heard came to take a bow.

Our youngest of two daughters had left for college, and we'd become the cliché empty nesters. I'd looked forward to these years for a while. Visions of daily loud sex danced in my mind, along with trips and vacations to recapture our youth.

Yeah, that thing--the recapture of a youth--another of the clichés. Soon after Lauren left on a softball scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, Brenda started showing the signs. She started dressing "younger," and for her 39th birthday wanted a tummy tuck and boob job, the latter more to tighten up things, only a minor cup increase. Knowing she'd always felt just a tad insecure about her body, I sprang for it with no regrets. Happy wife, yeah, that thing. Now, there was a cliché to look forward to!

Well, the surgery helped for about two months before the blahs of dissatisfaction reappeared, along with the fading of the bedroom oohs and aahs.

She focused her attention not on me but her work. With more time to devote to her career, becoming partner at her law firm became her new aspiration and main priority. Of course, that meant more hours. So... no increased nookies, and no trips or vacations.

Was I bummed? Hell, yeah. But, I'm a glass half-full kinda person (and the clichés keep rolling in, yeah I know). I reminded myself I still had a happy marriage to a beautiful and compatible wife, as well as a good set of friends.

So, for Brenda's fortieth, I racked my brain over what to do to get her refocused on our marriage. Wasn't that always our dream, to grow old together and do the things our busy parenting life precluded? One night, while she was working late (again), I watched one of the many classic car restoration programs on cable when an idea struck me.

For her 16th birthday, her parents gave her a new Toyota Solara convertible. It was reliable, sporty without being dangerous, and all the other good things. Red, it was, with a tan interior and top. Being the basic four-banger with modest performance, not the upscale V6, it was perfect for a young girl from upper-middle-class parents. She loved it, named it Betsy, for reasons I never understood, and drove it for many years. It always put a smile on her face.

With the birth of our first girl, Paige, Brenda decided to become a stay-at-home mom. We got the requisite minivan (hello, cliché number next). She wanted to hold on to the Solara for sentimental reasons, so I went along with it. Even built a carport next to the double attached garage. And parked my truck there to give her the best spaces. Not because I'm a pussy or anything, but it didn't cost too much and hey, if it spiced up the you know what, then it was cheap at the price. Sure, keeping the Solara cost a little extra, but not much. It was paid for, so it was just insurance and tags. Brenda's happiness was worth a few bucks to me, so no problem. However, after a year, it became clear that she never used it, and when the next time came to renew the registration, she finally accepted parting with her treasured Betsy.

A neighbor bought it for their daughter, who totaled the car in less than a year. Even though it wasn't hers anymore, Brenda still mourned for the demise of her beloved Betsy, and those neighbors were never invited to another party.

The old-car restoration program I watched, though, gave me the idea of finding another Betsy for Brenda. We didn't have kids, so didn't need an SUV, and she could relive her happy youth with a daily reminder, and that smile she always had.

I started looking around, but red/tan Solara convertibles were scarce as hens' teeth. However, after a while, I found one. It was the top of the line V6 model, but, at forty, I thought Brenda was mature enough not to be a risk to herself or others. Sneaking off work, I went to inspect the car and thought it was in good condition. With the seller's permission, I took it to Mike, one of our friends who owned an auto repair shop, and asked him to give it a thorough inspection.

"Ah, midlife crisis convertible, eh?" he joked.

I laughed. "Nah, if I did that I'd be buying a Mustang or Cobra, dude. This is a top-secret surprise for Brenda. It's what she had before we got Paige. Now that we're empty nesters, I thought I'd bless her with a symbol of her youth."

"Ahh. Nice of you. She's gonna love it, and when she gets it I bet you're going to get super-lucky!"

Well, I certainly hoped so, but I wasn't going to reveal my unhappy marriage secrets to too many people. Not when I hoped to get them straightened out again.

I took the car back to the owner, with Mike's bad news: it had leaks of oil and hydraulic fluid the owner had cleaned away, and, even if it was in perfect condition, the car was overpriced. He shrugged. Apparently, he knew there were very few of those convertibles on the market, and they were desirable. He was going to hold out on the price.

Determined to find a better deal, I kept looking around, but time started running out, so in the end I bit the bullet, spent the extra money to buy the car, and took it to Mike to fix up completely and have it detailed. Cost me another thousand or two, but when all was said and done, I had what I felt to be the perfect sentimental car for my wife. She was worth the extra money and trouble, I figured. There was no way she would expect anything like this, and it promised to be just the perfect surprise.

Her birthday arrived. It was a Friday. I had a gigantic yellow ribbon wrapped on the hood, put the top down, and I parked it on the street behind us so she wouldn't see it. Mike said he'd drive it up and park it on our driveway when she was in the house and I texted him. This way she wouldn't see it until the big reveal. In addition, I booked a romantic dinner at six for two at Donatello's, her favorite Italian restaurant, and generally viewed as the most exclusive restaurant in town. Hopefully the early dinner would leave some time for a little driving in her new car and some lovin' afterward.

A week before, Lauren, our youngest, called me and said she and Paige wanted to surprise their mom on her fortieth. They'd stay in a hotel down the street, and just show up when she arrived home. That would be great, I replied, except we wouldn't be able to have them for dinner, since I'd made reservations for only two at Donatello's. No problem, she understood, and added that they didn't want to be in the way in case I should get lucky. They'd just come and congratulate her, hand over their presents, and we could all go out for breakfast together on the Saturday morning. Lauren dropped voice over the phone, "After you and Mom painted the town red and wrecked your bedroom."

Yeah, from your lips to God's ears, I thought to myself.

--

The girls arrived a little early, just in case Mom decided to take off work earlier for her big day. We sat in the living room, catching up on their lives. Not much in mine to catch up on, just the same-old, same-old.

"Wait, Dad, you haven't reverted to Energizer bunnies with us gone?" Paige, our oldest, asked with a huge grin and a wink.

"Sadly, no, Paigie. I don't know what it is, maybe your mother has this dread of turning forty." I told them about the convertible I'd bought to help rekindle their mom's youthfulness. They wanted to see it, so they took turns to walk around the corner, just in case she came home while they were gone. They were thrilled. "Mom's gonna soooooo love it!" Lauren gushed.

The clock ticked by, and by five-thirty there was still no sign of Brenda. I had to call the restaurant and let them know something had come up, so they could let the table go to someone who actually was there. Paige called her mom, but it went to voicemail.

"Hey, Dad, don't you guys have a find-my-phone app on your phones?"

"Oh, duh," I replied with a slap to my forehead. "That's too easy for me to think of." I dialed it up for Brenda's phone. Speechless, I turned it to my girls.

"Oh my god," Lauren cried out. "This has to be a mistake." The app said her phone was at the Holiday Inn.

On a whim, I called for her boss, Brett Lancaster, on speaker and told the service it was an emergency. Top lawyers usually have live answer services, not just plain voicemail. His service operator said he was at a client meeting, and the earliest he would be able to respond would be eight.

The girls and I sat, stunned, just looking at each other.

"What a fucking bitch!" Lauren said.

"Hey, don't make any snap judgments," Paige replied. "Let's get all the facts first."

I picked up my phone, and called a good friend of mine, Carl Leonard, a PI, on his personal cell. His office happened to be in the same block as the Holiday Inn. When he picked up I gave him the situation, and asked if he could get someone there, like right away. I didn't want to go in case she showed up at home while I was gone.

Because of our friendship, he went himself, and called me at 6:30. "Robbie, I don't know what to tell you. I'm texting you a few pictures."

A few minutes later, three pictures showed up on my phone. My world fell apart as I turned the phone to my daughters: Brett and Brenda, strolling out of the hotel's main entrance, arm in arm and looking at each other with happy, loving smiles.

I was numb, just numb. My worst fears in living color. The two girls did a proper female freak-out, calling their mother names that would make a drunk angry sailor blush. I'd never heard language like that from them, not even in their teen rebellion years.

"Guys, wait. Calm down," I said. "Let's wait. For all we know they had dinner with a client they were about to lose."

"Dad, wakey, wakey," Paige said. "Would they look so lovey-dovey after a client meeting?"

I sank into my favorite lazy boy chair, shaking my head.

After a few more minutes, the front door opened, and in waltzed Brenda, face aglow. "Sorry I'm late. Our meeting ran a little overtime, and I couldn't call." Then she noticed the girls. "Oh, hey! This is a nice surprise! What's the occasion?"

Lauren, the vocal one, let her have it. "Dad and us put our lives on hold to celebrate your fortieth, and you just blew us off. Congratulations. May you grow more wrinkles and warts than any surgeon can fix. Bitch." She threw her wrapped gift on the coffee table and turned to Paige. "Coming?"

Paige, without a word, flung her gift on the coffee table and left with her sister, with nothing but a look that could kill toward her mother.

Brenda's hand flew to her mouth. "Ohmigod, I'm sorry, Robbie."

I turned my phone, with the picture of her and her lover, to her and lay it on the table. "You look the very picture of sorry. Looks like you've already celebrated your birthday with the love of your life. I'll just head out and get myself a Big Mac, while you shower and clean yourself off from his slime."

"I already had a sh--" She realized what she was saying and shut her mouth.

"Do it again. I know it won't make you clean, but at least it'll make you smell better."

On the way to Mickey Dees, I called Mike.

"Want me to bring it now?" he asked.

"No sir. She's not getting the car. She spent the afternoon fucking her boyfriend and didn't get home till now. Can you take the car to your shop and park it until I sell it? There's no way I'm giving it to her. She already has something to remind her of her youth--fucking her boyfriend."

"Ah, shit. Sorry, bud. That had to hurt."

"Like you won't believe." I pulled up to the drive-thru and placed my order. Good thing they don't sell alcohol.

I didn't want to sit inside with other losers staring at me, so I pulled to a dark corner in the parking lot and wrestled the food down.

Then I called Carl, the PI, thanked him and asked if he knew the name of a good divorce attorney. He did--his sister. He told me he'd call her on my behalf and see how quickly he could get an appointment. Then he told me to do as much of finance splitting that night as I could, lest Brenda tried to get a jump on me, her boyfriend being a senior lawyer and all.

Hmm, that brought a thought to my mind.

My phone rang before I could do anything. Her parents. Aw, shit. Did she call them and give them a cockamamie story, making me the bad guy? Heaving a sigh, I slid the connection open.

"Robbie, I'm so sorry." It was Mary, her mother.

"For what?" I asked, not know what I was dealing with.

The waterfall brought me up to speed. "Lauren and Paige called us and sent some photos, which clearly show Brenda cheating. On her birthday. They told me about the special car you bought. That was so thoughtful of you. You're such a good man--I hope you know we've always thought of you as the perfect son. You should also know we are pissed at the little bitch. We did not raise her like that. I hope you realize that. What got into her? Did she think she could get away with something like that?" She paused to take a breath. Before I could respond, my angry mother-in-law continued. "What a despicable, evil thing to do. Paige and Lauren came all the way. Those two young ladies are pissed, too. What are you going to do?"

Finally, a break. I waited to make sure she was done. "What can I do, mom? To go fu-- screw your boyfriend on your birthday, when you have to know someone is waiting at home to celebrate it, is as in-your-face disrespectful as you can get. If dad did that to you, what would you do?"

"Cut off his balls with a rusty knife, then throw him in the lake." She uttered a venomous laugh. "Then I'll run him over with a speedboat." She paused. "Then I'll divorce what's left of his ass and take him to the cleaners."

That broke the atmosphere and we both had a belly laugh. "We think alike, mom. I think you have an inkling of what's coming. Unfortunately I don't have a speedboat."

I turned off my phone and crashed at a Hilton after taking care of the basic banking stuff. No way was I going to slum it in a cheap motel as long as she was paying half.

--

Carl's sister, Shelley "Rattler" Leonard, saw me on Saturday as a special favor to her brother. There was no point to prove the adultery. In a no-fault state like ours, all I needed was to want to get away from the ungrateful slut. But, she warned, Brett was a legal heavyweight, and we could expect him to go the extra mile to secure a good property settlement for his floozy.

To head that off, we felt the best strategy to was to put him on the defensive. So we tracked down his wife's email address and sent her a copy of Carl's pictures.

Brett's wife Nancy called me within five minutes. I told her she's on speaker with my divorce lawyer.

"When were those pictures taken?" she wanted to know.

"Last night, my wife's 40th birthday. Why, where did he say he was?"

"The sonofabitch! He canceled our usual Friday date night because he said he had a client emergency."

"Well, he may be right. I'm having my wife served in a couple days and she may be his first new client."

"Hmm, did you send a copy to Jim Morris?"

"Who's that?"

"His firm's head partner."

The Rattler nodded her head like she knew who he was.

"No," I replied, "we don't have his email address."

"Okay. As soon as we hang up I'll text you his contact info. Jim is as straight as they come. He'll fire Brett right away."

"Wait, won't that hurt you financially?"

"Oh no. When they fire Brett, they'll have to buy out his partnership. The timing would be perfect for me, because I'll get half. A few hundred thou should keep me out of the poorhouse for a while."

After a moment, she continued. "Say, who's your divorce lawyer?"

"Shelley Leonard. She's on this call."

"Oooh, the Rattler? Niiiice! Shelley, will you take my case as well?"

"With pleasure, Nancy. I hate cheaters. Can you come in tomorrow morning, even though it's Sunday I'd be happy to get the ball rolling."

After hanging up, Shelley sent another copy of the pictures to Brett's boss, along with a recommendation he call Brett's wife for more details.

When I got back to my hotel, I called Paige and offered her the car. She declined, saying she didn't want any positive connection to her cheating slut of a mother. Lauren said she'd have no issues. "A reliable convertible, with Mike addressing all its issues? That's a no-brainer, dad. Thanks!"

--

I stayed in the Hilton, and went back to work Monday. During the day I snuck back home to pack most of my clothes and electronics into boxes, after locating a month-to-month apartment near my office.

After meeting with our "rattler," Brett's wife Nancy and I decided to time the serving of our soon-to-be exes for the same time at work. Nancy told Brett's boss everything, and he agreed to wait until the cheaters were served before dropping the hammer on them. At my request, he agreed to hold off on terminating Brenda until after the divorce. In the meantime, though, she'd become a filing clerk, to let everyone in the firm see what he thought of lawyers who displayed such a lack of integrity.

At Shelley's recommendation, I offered a reasonable split of our assets if she signed right away. There was no way I was going to avoid that.

If I thought Brenda would see the light and sign, I was rudely disabused of that notion. She found out where I was staying and pounded on my hotel room door until I let her in. "What the fuck's the matter with you?" she screamed as she walked in.

"You mean other than being married to a slut? I guess nothing."

"You can't do this. You have no proof we did anything."

"That's true." I kept my calm demeanor as I flopped onto the bed, resting against the wall-mounted headboard. "What I do have proof of if your disrespect, and your total apathy the past few months. You're a law expert. Surely you know we live in a no-fault state. All I need to divorce your ass is to not want to be married to you any longer. Newsflash: I don't.

"I'm tired of always bending over backward to keep you happy but all you do is turn your smile and the swamp between your legs to your boyfriend. Good news for you, babe: he will be single, now, too, so the two of you no longer have to sneak away to the Holiday Inn. You can just move in together and fuck every single day."

I paused while she blew out her breath like the cliché fish on dry ground. "You're welcome," I said with a smile.

"You can't throw me out like yesterday's trash," she shouted.

"Again, you know more about the law than I do, but yes, I can. You became yesterday's trash when you disrespected me by fucking your boyfriend on your birthday and left me looking like a loser to your daughters and the folks at Donatello's when I had to cancel our reservation."

The fire when out of her voice. "Donatello's? You always said that's too expensive."

"I figured that you were worth it for your fortieth. But, I guess, we all make mistakes. I'm learning, though. Bottom line, there's nothing you can do to stop the divorce."

"So you're throwing away almost twenty years of marriage? Over something you can't even prove?"

"No, Brenda, you're the one who threw it away. The thousands I spent for your beauty surgery last year? The car I bought you this year? What have you done for me lately to show you want to stay married? Your daughters were with me when we tried to locate you. They told me I'd be an idiot to stay with a bitch like you. Your actions, dear, your actions reflect the 'throwing away' as you put it. I'm just recording it in the legal system."

"But Robbie I love you. I don't want--"

"Love? You coulda fooled me ma'am. No, correction. You DID fool me. But now I see the truth and the truth is setting me free. Just sign the papers and let's move on with our lives."

"You think you're gonna dictate the law to me? You don't know who you're dealing with, mister."

"I do. A slimeball who's happy to break up two marriages to dip his dick in that swamp between your legs. Who's not allowed to represent his lover."

"Ha, you forget he's a member of one of the most respected law firms in the city!"

"Is he, now? I know he WAS, but is he still? Jim Morris doesn't like cheaters, I thought you knew that."

Doubt showed up in her gaping fish face (the clichés just kept rolling). "You told him about us?"

"Actually, no, his wife did that for you. Didn't want him all hooked up with a lowclass cheater. From what I hear your fuckbuddy's career might not be as secure anymore."

Still refusing to bow to the inevitable, she jumped up and pointed a finger at my chest. "You've not heard the last about this crap."

"Sadly, I have to agree with that, thanks to your stupidity."

Her refusal to sign unleashed Plan B. Her parents and our pastor received copies of the pictures. Granted, there were no in flagrante delicto pics, but the recipients were all smart enough to draw the obvious conclusion.

Brenda's parents surprised her (and me) and turned into piranhas. Fuck the "I'm your daughter" crap. She brought unnecessary shame on the family when she had everything she could possibly want. Brenda was ostracized from her entire support network, just like back in the day when a high schooler got pregnant and was cut off from everyone, and tossed out n the street.

Worse, Brent, fired and divorced, was in no position to help her. He didn't want anything to do with her anymore, so she had no choice but to look for another lawyer. However, because Jim Morris put out the word, no reputable lawyer in town would touch her case.

So, reluctantly, she signed.

When the divorce became final, she got fired and found herself unable to get a job at any legal firm in town. None of them wanted to antagonize Jim Morris just in order to hire a cheater of questionable character.

Brett's wife Nancy stayed in touch. One cliché that did not happen, sadly, was Nancy and I hooking up. We had a few lunches during the whole process, but in the end neither of us felt any spark, and without saying anything, we just ended up as good friends.

Lauren, our youngest, eventually found a job for Brenda when her nursing school's receptionist left. Every day, Brenda had to walk past the shiny red Solara in the school's parking lot. Wonder what she thought.