like a crazy itch all over my body. An itch I just can’t reach. But as my brain emptied onto the grey tiles next to Dirk’s guts, all I saw were my keys on the kitchen counter, and through the door to the garage was my little black Mini sitting next to his Golf. I don’t remember how I got that car out the garage, down the hill, and around the curve to Di’s house. Thank God she also lives in Beach View Estate ’cause I don’t think security would’ve let me pass through at the gate. Or maybe they would have. I guess they wouldn’t have seen the wet puke stuck on my jeans or the broken bits of my heart. Or heard the zillion What the fucks! screaming silently in my head.
2
“Kareeeeeee! Didn’t think I’d be seeing you tonight, hey!” Di said, calling my name the way I liked so it sounded like Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. She had laughed when she heard it was me at the intercom next to her front door. The Bartletts don’t have one of those fancy ones that has a camera. She stopped laughing when she saw me. Even though it sounded the same, my look was less Carrie Bradshaw and more Stephen King’s Carrie White. “Oh, Kari, what’s wrong?” she said, her brown eyes creasing. “Dirk’s not going to be late, is he?” She put an arm round my shoulder. “Come in. Alan and the girls are at the movies – it’s just me here.”
It hit me, crashed into me, knocking me over. My brain finally understood what Dirk had said, what my heart was feeling. All I could smell was his puke full of old booze as I hugged Di hard, my tears finally coming as I held onto her tall trunk of a body.
“Dirk slept with Eva,” I said into Di’s body. Her arms squeezed tighter around me. “I am the dumbest woman alive. I made him a chocolate heart cake for Valentine’s. He slept with Eva.” My words bubbled out together with the snot I wiped on my sleeve. “It wasn’t part of the fucking Plan.” I seemed unable to think or speak a sentence without the work fuck in it. “I knew she was into him but I never dreamed he’d do it. Stupid fucking me. I’m a joke. And all my Valentine’s bullshit makes me a bigger stupid joke.”
Valentine’s bullshit.
Yesterday it wasn’t bullshit. Yesterday I had told LSDoK that I loved it. Yesterday I was Ready, Steady, Go! It’s Almost Valentine’s. Stupid little name I gave the Plan: How to Re-Woo Dirk aka The Valentine’s Scrooge. Today I hated it. Should’ve called it Kari’s Idiot’s Guide to Tempting Fucking Fate.
Di knew about the Plan but she stayed quiet. She led me by the hand down the hall and into her kitchen, pulling white leather-topped bar stools out from under the kitchen counter for us both. We sat side by side, me in my stinky clothes, my elbows resting on her super-clean counter. Our phones lay in front of us on the white Caesarstone, silent but buzzing, mine flashing with missed calls. Dirk? Or LSDoK laughing in a parallel universe. Di picked hers up and poked out a message to someone. The buzzing stopped.
“I did everything on the stupid List to prove Dirk wrong, since he says I can’t plan a piss-up in a brewery. I took the day off work to make it happen, for fucksakes.” I counted off on my fingers, one by one: “Cleaned the house because no Mildred on a Friday; walked to Pick n Pay at Eden; bought things for the cake; looked for dinner; stopped at the bottle-store for bubbles; got food for Marsh. I even squeezed in a wax at that new salon – and that wasn’t even on the List.” Seven fingers spiked into the air like a kid on her birthday, waiting to be praised for the miraculous achievement of being seven.
Di nodded with sorry eyes. They were all tired of hearing about the Plan and the List, I knew, but I couldn’t stop myself from telling Di again, as if telling her about what I had done would make what Dirk had done more ridiculous, more outrageous. Less possible.
How could he?
“I even signed up to the bloody Boot Camp on Eden ’cause he said I need more exercise, that driving around with a bag full of new yoga clothes for six months doesn’t count.”
“Ag shame, Kari, I know you really went to a lot of effort. I’m sorry it turned out like this.”
I could see pity in Di’s eyes. She made big glasses of red wine appear – she loves, I hate, but red’s all there was. She drank and waited while I drank and talked. And cried. And moaned. And whined. “I made that fucking chocolate cake from scratch, just like I said I would. Two perfect layers with chocolate ganache in between.” I went on, unstoppable. “I’d even imagined how I would hand over the cake, maybe do it wearing that thong. I wasn’t sure. The last time I wore it the whole thing backfired and he asked me if I wasn’t cold. I was going to get everything ready and then just wait for him, like a good hot wife.” I stopped for a breath, deciding whether to tell. “You know, last week he only got home on Saturday.” None of them knew that, not even Lily.
And now I’m wondering. Dirk and Eva. How long has it been going on? Was he with her last Friday? Were they together while I was writing up my idiot V-Day Plan? Did they take Friday off work too?
I gulped the wine. How clever and naughty I’d felt about that chocolate cake. How stupid and dumb I turned out to be.
“That coming home on Saturday thing was shit, but ja, hey, I never tried the hot wife part and the good wife thing didn’t work for me either. I’ve got no advice for you there. Whatever the story, it’s not your fault, Kari.” It was Di’s turn to gulp. Her own questions about her marital problems probably going in her head. “It’s Dirk’s fault.”
“I was going to Be Nice,” I cried. “I knew things weren’t going so well with the Monday to Friday commute to Joburg. I knew it was hard, but I never ever thought it would be this hard. I never thought this could happen.” I could hear myself whining. I gulped more wine, too little too late. Dirk slept with Eva. “I could’ve made a bigger effort to Skype or text every day. But he is so bad at that kind of thing it’s a pain. And when he is here there’s always work or biking or mates he wants to catch up with. And I also have stuff.” I sounded lame even to myself. “And these days we always fight about the stupid baby thing. I started avoiding him.”
The truth is I hadn’t been nice to Dirk. I hadn’t tried. Now it was too late to Be Nice to Dirk, the Just Do It part of the Plan. I had waited too long. Instead I’d now had to Watch Dirk Puke and Listen to Dirk Confess.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Doesn’t matter what, Dirk is a dick for what he did. Everyone has issues. All your V-Day stuff doesn’t make you stupid, it just makes him a bigger dick.” Di doesn’t usually say dick, not even when her girls are out of sight, so I knew she was really angry.
“Valentine’s isn’t even for real grown-ups. Why did I think it would help? Here I am: thirty-one, almost a lawyer, if I ever finish studying. All right, far from a lawyer, but I’m a grown-up with a husband and a job and a cat and a bond and a nearly paid-up car. I should’ve stopped with the stupid Valentine’s Day stuff long ago.” I had been hoping this year it would re-start something. Fun, romance, laughs. V for VictoryValentine.
Di nodded, her mouth grimacing. I know she hates Valentine’s, just like Dirk does. But I love it – loved it. Dirk says couples only look happy on Valentine’s Day because they are drunk on champagne, and the unhappy ones know to just stay indoors until the whole bloody thing is over. He doesn’t even buy me a card. But I do. And I know he doesn’t hate everything about it ’cause I found the place where he keeps every single Valentine I have ever sent him. His sock drawer – how predictable is that?
I thought the Plan could work.
“It’s not your fault. So you had problems, but,” Di said, “you didn’t decide to sleep with someone else. You were making an effort. It was worth a shot, even if all Valentine’s
