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“Nothing.”
“By nothing, do you mean have I noticed that Doug keeps checking you out? He’s about as subtle as a kid in the third grade. Next, he’ll try to pull your hair. Speaking of which…your hair looks different. What did you do to it?”
“I colored out the gray.”
Pilar rolled her eyes. “What gray? You and Claire could be sisters,” she said, referring to Mimi’s seventeen-year-old daughter.
“Ha! I wish. And the gray was there, believe me.”
“Well, your hair looks great. Just like the rest of you.” Pilar lifted Mimi’s hands and smiled in approval. “Look at that. You even got a manicure!” The smile quickly vanished. “Where’s your wedding ring?”
Mimi automatically rubbed her left thumb up against her ring finger. After nearly eighteen years of marriage it felt strange not wearing her ring. “I took it off this morning.”
Pilar’s face fell. “Oh, babe. I know you and Zeke are having problems, but please tell me you’re having it cleaned or resized or something.”
“I took it off this morning to do dishes and forgot to put it back on.” Pilar looked like she didn’t believe her. “No, really, I was just so nervous about this meeting I would have forgotten my head if it wasn’t attached.” Mimi swallowed hard. She’d never been a good liar, and Pilar was too shrewd for her own good. “It’s the truth,” Mimi said, avoiding Pilar’s beady eyed-stare. “But…you’re right about Zeke and me. We’re still having problems. We’re kind of in a time out.”
“A time out? From what?” Pilar demanded.
“From our marriage.”
“Does Zeke know that? Because I saw him at The Bistro this morning and we had an entire conversation about couples Bunco.”
Mimi and Pilar belonged to Whispering Bay’s oldest established Bunco group, affectionately known around town as the Bunco Babes. Every Thursday night the group rolled dice, drank frozen margaritas, and gossiped. It was the best girls’ night out in town. The group consisted of twelve members, all fierce and loyal friends. Once a year every April they allowed their significant others to join them. The men liked to pretend that they had to be dragged along, but it was all an act. The truth was, everyone looked forward to couples Bunco. Even Zeke, the original grumpy cat.
“Believe me, Zeke knows we’re taking a time out. He’s sleeping at the office.” At least, she assumed he was sleeping at the office. She hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered up the information.
“But this is temporary, right? I mean, you guys are going to work it all out.”
That’s exactly what Mimi had thought when they’d first gone to counseling. But that had been a year-and-a-half ago and nothing had changed.
Mimi gave her friend a shaky smile. “It’s hard to work out your problems when one of you doesn’t think any exist.”
“Who else knows?” Pilar asked softly.
“No one yet. Zeke asked me to wait. But I can’t hold off forever. I mean, people are going to notice he’s not living at the house. We’re telling the kids first, of course, then our families, and then…everyone else.”
“So Allie doesn’t know either?”
Allie was Zeke’s younger sister. Although Mimi was only four years older than Allie, she felt more like a mother to her than a sister-in-law. Allie would take the news hard. She was engaged to marry her high school sweetheart Tom Donalan this summer and Mimi had promised she would help with the wedding, a promise Mimi would naturally keep. Just because she and Zeke were having problems didn’t mean her relationship with her sister-in-law would change.
“I’m having lunch with Allie tomorrow. I plan to tell her then. After I have a couple of stiff drinks.”
“You don’t think Zeke has already told her?”
“This is Zeke we’re talking about. Remember?”
Pilar smiled sympathetically. Like the rest of Mimi’s close friends, Pilar knew Zeke well enough to know that when it came to discussing his feelings (or anything else remotely personal), Zeke was the poster boy for the strong and silent type. Allie might be his sister, but like the rest of the people in Zeke’s life she was on a need-to-know basis. And there was precious little Zeke Grant thought people needed to know. Plus, there was the fact that Zeke was still hoping this whole time out thing would blow over and they could pretend it never happened.
“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Pilar drew her into a tight hug. “And pretty please, and I’m speaking as both a friend and a lawyer here, don’t do anything rash.”
“I promise,” Mimi said, swiping away a tear. “Oh, God. Do mayors cry? Because I’m pretty sure they don’t.”
“Mayors do whatever the hell they want. It’s part of the benefit package.”
*~*~*
The meeting resumed with more talk about the city budget. Bruce went into what sounded like a rehearsed speech, talking banker talk that, frankly, Mimi didn’t really understand all too well. A year ago, when she’d announced to her family that she was running for mayor, Zeke had pointed out her lack of fiscal experience. She’d brushed it off at the time, but he had a point. If she was going to do a good job as mayor she was going to have to understand all the numbers in this budget.
