Trudy stood in the electronics store and watched the gaggle of television sets which showed her husband kissing the teen-age girl. She wanted to cry, but she knew she had to suck in her gut and hold back her tears.
"You didn't know this?" Gloria asked. "I thought everyone knew this."
"Shhh," Trudy snapped back.
Gloria was right beside her, gloating with that smug "I-told-you-so" expression that only the truly evil possess, and there was no way Trudy was going to give the little tramp the satisfaction.
"I guess there's no harm in telling you now that it's out," Trudy said once the TV action ended and the pundits took over. "I filed for divorce three months ago because of this girl."
"You did not!" Gloria protested. "You're totally freaked out by this. You were completely flummoxed a second ago when I told you about how Robby came onto me and so many others."
"I didn't know about THAT," Trudy said with a dose of fake sympathy. "I only knew he loved Lisa -- I never knew he was cheating on her, too. And I'll admit, I didn't know they were going to get married. Poor girl, she doesn't know what she's getting herself into, does she?"
Gloria had assumed that the only reason Robby had walked out on her the other day was because of some sick mid-Western devotion to his wife. If the devotion was actually to an acne-infested seventeen-year old, the Stanford graduate was truly offended. But she wasn't going to let Trudy know it.
"Honey, I gotta be honest," Gloria confessed. "I had heard you filed for divorce -- everyone's talking about it -- I just didn't want to believe it. I'm sorry."
That was the moment Trudy realized that Gloria didn't know squat. There had been no filing for divorce -- not yet, anyway -- and Trudy knew that she had at last beaten the young agent.
"That's what I thought," Trudy countered. "Robby didn't do much about hiding anything towards the end, and you'd have to be a pretty big IDIOT to have missed it all."
For one of very few times in her life, Gloria had no idea what to say.
"I better go pay the bill," was all she could come up with.
The two ladies gave each other a big tinseltrash hug and lied as they promised to have lunch together again very soon.
Alone in her car, Trudy wanted to cry once more. As much as she didn't want to believe the tramp with whom she had just had lunch, Gloria had made some darn good points. Trudy loved Robby more than anything, and she had cheated on HIM. It only stood to reason that he could do the same.
Yet Trudy knew she had to hold it together for the moment because the day's chores were far from over. Her son went to day camp Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and he had been at his friend's house since yesterday's pickup. So she phoned the other boy's stepmother to let her know that she was on her way to get little Andy, hoping upon hope that the woman hadn't turned on her TV in the past hour.
Brittany Ryerson was the brand new trophy wife of Johnny Ryerson, one of the top action-adventure writers in the film trade. Johnny (an Artie Eichman client) had actually been kicking around the industry for about fifteen years before hitting it huge by penning a highly acclaimed, highly profitable film called "Blood and Spilling Guts." No, that's not the real name of the film, but by calling it that I feel I have given you a good idea of how this highly respected scribe makes his living.
"You poor thing," began the young woman, dashing any hope Trudy had of getting off the phone unscathed.
Better get used to it, Trudy thought with a sigh. I'm going to be getting a lot of this.
"What kind of a man would do that to his wife?" Brittany went on. "On national TV, yet."
"I know," Trudy said. "Listen, I've got to make a few more calls. I just wanted to let you know I'll be over to pick up Andy in about twenty minutes. How's he doing?"
"As cute and polite as ever," the woman answered. "They've been playing Nintendo since they got here yesterday afternoon, but I made sure he didn't hear a thing."
"Thanks, Brit," Trudy replied. "I think he should get it from me first."
"Listen, Trudes," the trophy wife began tentatively. "Tonight, we're all going down to our house in La Jolla for the weekend. We wanted to go for the whole week, but Johnny had to pitch "3" this aft." (By "3" she meant, of course, yet another sequel to Johnny's meat-and-potato franchise. "Blood and Spilling Guts 2" had just come out that past Friday, and it was already raking it in.)
"Anyway, if your house was swarming with reporters yesterday, it's going to be even worse today... and tomorrow... and the day after..."
Get on with it, Trudy thought. She knew the young stepmother was kind and well-meaning, but did all trophy wives have to be so darn talky?
"...And it would be no problem at all for Andy to come with us. He and Markie are having such a great time, and I promise to keep the TV off and the newspapers away. They'll swim in the ocean, play Nintendo, maybe we'll take them to the zoo. It'll give you the chance to throw your cocksucking husband out of the house without the boy being around."
"Thank you so much, but I don't think so," Trudy replied. "I think it would be best if Andy was with us, just in case he hears something."
"If that happens, we'll bring him straight home," Brittany offered. "It's only about a two hour drive."
"I don't know," she said. "Let me talk to him."
"Hold on," Brittany said, then called off, "Andy! It's your mom!"
"Be right there!" Trudy faintly heard her son yell back. "I've almost killed the boss!"
Trudy waited on hold for about two minutes while Andy tried to annihilate his Nintendo monster. Ordinarily, it would frustrate or anger her, but under the circumstances she couldn't help be amused by the pure innocence of her little son, and was glad he was still completely in the dark.
So glad, in fact, that once again she almost started to cry. The only thing that stopped her was little Andy's voice finally popping onto the phone.
"Mom, can I go to La Jolla with the Ryersons?" Andy said instead of hello. "Pleeeeeeease?"
"I don't know, Andy," she said. "Your father and I haven't seen you for a whole day. We miss you, hon."
"Pleeeeeease," the boy repeated. "It's only till Monday morning. I'm old enough. Pleeeeease."
Finally, Trudy gave her consent. Clearly spending the weekend with his best friend was preferable to the harassment he'd get from the paparazzi who were camped out on their front lawn.
So she worked out the details with Brittany, pulled a U-turn and headed on home as Brittany offered her final piece of advice.
"You kick that son-of-a-bitch husband of yours out on his ass," she advised. "You kick him out right now."
Trudy arrived at her home in the flats of Studio City (as opposed to the hills of Studio City where the same type of house would cost almost three times as much.) There were only a few newsmen setting up, far less than last night, and Trudy knew that it was just the beginning of the barrage. So, once again, she held back her tears.
"How much you going to take Robby for?" shouted one reporter as she walked up the walkway to her front door.
"Who's your divorce attorney?" yelled another.
"Do you still love him?" asked yet another.
Robby had briefed her on how to respond the night before, but those answers no longer applied now that he had publicly stated that he was divorcing her. She had no idea what to say, or how to say it -- or even if she wanted to protect the s.o.b. any longer. The best she could think of was to simply act like she hadn't seen the daily news.
"I don't believe my husband is capable of rape," she told them. "These are all false accusations, and the truth will come out at trial."
"What about the teenage girl?"
"Did you know that he said he was leaving you?" the reporters screamed as she struggled to shove her house key into the lock.
"Are you going to fight for him or let him go?"
"I don't believe my husband is capable of rape," she repeated as the door opened. "These are all false accusations, and the truth will come out at trial."
And she dashed into the house, locking the door behind her, leaving the press to simply pity the poor woman who clearly had no idea what was going on in her own life.
She ignored the blinking "2" on the answering machine -- not knowing they were the first two of Robby's nine apologies -- and walked straight into their bedroom where she proceeded to pack Robby's things. She didn't want him to leave, but he had made his intentions clear on TV.
She had packed for her husband on almost every trip they had ever taken together, and many that he had taken alone. But this time it was devastating for her.
She had known Robby her entire adult life, and it was so unlike him to do anything like what he was presently doing. But she had watched him fall into despair over the past years of his sagging career, and he wouldn't be the first depressed actor who had turned to alcohol and drugs to battle such depression. Once he was there, Trudy realized, all the rest was possible.
But, on the other hand, maybe it was all just like like he said. Maybe he really was only acting the jerk in order to have something for which to apologize to the community and thereby revitalize his career.
But even if that were so, would he not still leave her just to keep the show going?
No, he wouldn't, she decided, not if it was an act.
But was it an act? she wondered. Had he really fallen in love with a high school girl? Could it be possible that he would really leave her for some under-age bimbo? The girl wasn't even pretty -- but maybe that's the best that unemployable ex-sitcom stars get. Was Gloria telling the truth? Had her husband really been hitting on every little skirt that had come down the pike?
The secretary-agent had been so convincing at their lunch that it was hard for Trudy to believe she was completely lying. On top of that, every radio station and TV show kept pounding away at all the horrible things Robby had done. Maybe the scam wasn't for the Hollywood community at all -- maybe she was the one being scammed. Maybe this was nothing but the most ingenious lie a man could tell his gullible wife so that she would overlook his demonic unforgivable transgressions.
And with that in mind, she broke down and cried. When she heard cameras clicking from outside her bedroom window and saw ten photographers shoving each other for position to snatch shots of the beleaguered wife, she quickly pulled herself together and drew the drapes closed. She then, with total composure, walked into the living room and pulled down the blinds. Finally, alone, in total darkness, she cried her little eyes out in peace.
There she sat for the rest of the afternoon. She didn't answer the phone when Robby called -- seven more times throughout the course of the day. Instead, she just listened with satisfaction to his guilt-ridden apologies. She didn't answer when her parents called to tell her to "leave the bum before he does you any more harm." She didn't answer when Robby's father called (Robby's mother had died of pancreatic cancer several years earlier) to leave a dual message. The message for Trudy was to give Robby a chance, all marriages have problems, and to stand by her man. The message for Robby was "what the hell is wrong with you, you pissant shit? Be a man, for crying out loud!"
There she remained for almost six hours, listening to the advice of the world, clutching her little throw pillow as if it were the only being who truly understood her.
And her thoughts raced through her head, one million at a time. Her only way to stop them was for her to make decisions and come up with a plan of her own.
If the depression had really turned Robby to drugs, and the drugs had caused him to lose all sense of self-control and moral fortitude, then he clearly needed her more than ever. If that was really really it, she WOULD stand by her man.
"For better or for worse." She had meant it when she said it, and she still meant it now. She herself had made a huge mistake with Artie, and Robby had come back to her with total forgiveness. How could she give him any less for his mistakes, his weaknesses?
So as painful as his recent actions were to her, if this was all the result of a depression-related drug problem, she would stand by him.
But if it was just a scam, just a way for him to get some b.s. acting job, she would no longer accept the humiliation that was being flung upon her, nor the shame that was being dumped upon their family. She just couldn't.
The heck with his career, she said to herself as she began to feel a wee bit more empowered. The heck with L.A.'s hoity-toity private schools. The public schools back in Iowa would give the boy a fine education, and they could live like royalty off their savings in the heartland, while the same money made them barely middle class in this over-congested, over-priced polluted city. Her decision was made, and now it was up to him.
She had never given Robby an ultimatum in the twenty-plus years that she had known him, but she was going to do it now. It was his career, or it was her, and there was no middle ground. Robby would simply have to choose between his family and his job.
Yet when she heard the front door open, heard Robby's tepid, "Honey? Are you home?" a new flood of emotion overwhelmed her and she began to cry once more.
Because she realized that she had no idea what his choice would be. She knew how important his career was to him, and it occurred to her that he just might choose it over her and their son.
He would choose her. I'll tell you that right now. I'll even repeat it. Robby will choose his wife and son!
But the big question was, when he did that, could she possibly accept it?
*** Up Next: "The Ultimatum" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
Copyright © 2015 Tinseltrash, Inc.