The Last Original Wife by Dorothea Benton Frank Read Free Book Online Page B

Harold’s clock rather smartly and in fact almost completely. That old saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Danette embodied the words, but in the way a true lady would.
    Harold quickly married Cornelia on Valentine’s Day, exactly four nights before his daughter’s engagement party, which was also held at the club. At the engagement party we also had the opportunity to meet Lisette, thirty-one, who was Paolo’s personal trainer. I thought I might throw up. Wow, I thought, it took him all of a couple of months to find a replacement.
    Molly, the poor child, had no idea her father, Harold, was getting remarried. Neither did anyone else. Molly was understandably devastated and could barely maintain her composure, wondering aloud to anyone who would listen, when would her father stop ruining her life? And I wondered to Wes, didn’t Cornelia know that she was barely ten years older than Molly?
    When indeed? I thought.
    I began to think there would never be an end to the bad taste and timing of Wes’s two remaining best friends, others having left for sunnier climes and younger arms over the years.
    Danette decided back in January that she was going to dramatically change her life. Rather than beg Harold to reconsider, which was what Wes predicted, she invited Harold to get the hell out of her gorgeous center hall colonial in Buckhead and to go live with his Jezebel in her tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Allure apartment complex at Brookwood on Peachtree Valley Road. That would be NW, thank you. And yes, Allure . Harold was too smitten to have any shame. He bubbled over with a never-before-seen enthusiasm and couldn’t pack and hit the road fast enough.
    Freedom from Danette’s wrath! Let my lawyers handle it! I want to be free! Free! Take the money! Give her whatever she wants! I’m outta here! Cornelia! My love!
    Of course I never heard him utter these actual words, but they were all over his face every time I saw him at the club during the short negotiation period of his settlement battles with Danette. He wanted a fast divorce and didn’t even have the decency to show the slightest bit of remorse. All through dinner, Cornelia had her gelled nails all over Harold, and his hand traveled her lap to the point where I wondered when someone from the Ethics Committee would ask them to knock it off. My face was in flames, but Wes seemed not to notice a thing. The next thing I knew we were having dinner with Paolo again but now with Lisette on his arm. Oh, Lord, I thought.
    Naturally, after any one or all of these dinners Wes and I would go home and the rest of the night was completely ruined. Well, for me, at least. Wes didn’t seem to care that I was so unnerved by Harold’s happiness or Paolo’s or why. He’d tell me to go to sleep and quit fretting over things I couldn’t change. He needed his sleep. He had an early tee time. He’d roll over and give me a slap on my hip, roll back, turn out the light, and begin to snore within minutes. I’d lie there for what seemed like hours wondering if Harold had lost his mind or if I was losing mine.
    The sight of Cornelia and Harold together simply made me ill. It was way worse than Paolo and Lisette. Maybe because Tessa was gone.
    Listen, I’m hardly naive. I’ve seen the Jerry Springer Show . I knew that people fooled around and had been fooling around since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Many of them wound up divorced, but I never thought anything this brazen and embarrassing would happen to Danette. Reality shows were one thing, but Harold’s behavior just seemed so vulgar and desperate. And Cornelia was cheap. At least Tessa was dead. She didn’t have to see Paolo cavorting around with gel in his spiked hair.
    Having dinner with Harold and Cornelia and Lisette and Paolo was awful. I missed my friends. Hopefully, Tessa was in heaven petitioning the good Lord for Harold and even poor