a cardboard sign reading Control Freak with a dozen exclamation points after it.
She stuck out her tongue at Doyle, then without missing a beat went right back to her caller. “Well, whatever works best for you. Make it a double, if you have to, and while you’re doing that let me tell you what I think about your bed-hopping hubby. First, I think his cheating on you is only a fling. Usually is. Just sex. Men don’t leave their wives for older women with kids, unless there’s a whole lot of money involved. So, does she have money?”
“Not that I know of. She’s a waitress, I think.”
“Good, that means it’s just sex. He’s simply out for some exercise. And since he’s real busy exercising his male muscle in all the wrong places, you’ve got a decision to make. Unless you want to go through life getting taken advantage of by a bed-buzzing jerk, you can either kick him out or keep him. Either way, you’ve got to learn how to respect yourself so you’ll believe you don’t deserve what he’s doing to you.
“So like I said, you can dump the bum. Hold your head high, walk out that door, take everything you can get your little hands on, and don’t look back. He’s not worth it. And believe me when I tell you that, because this is an area where Valentine knows what she’s talking about.” Except when Roxy walked out that marriage door, the only thing in her little hands was the iron resolve to do better without him than she’d done with him. It was all she wanted, all she took. He got the three-legged card table, the brick and board bookshelves—no books, couldn’t afford them—and the lumpy mattress on the lumpy floor. A good deal for Roxy all the way around.
She drew in a deep breath, preparing herself to take the other approach—something she always did since most callers didn’t want advice, but rather validation for something they wanted to do or had already done. “Or here’s another plan that just might work for you. If you love him—and I think you do or you wouldn’t be calling trying to figure out how to fix this thing—and you want to keep him around, I think you should teach him a lesson. Revenge is so sweet. Good for the feminine ego, and if you do it the right way he won’t go wandering off again.” She glanced over at Astrid and smiled. “So which is it?”
“Keep him, give him another chance.”
A keeper. Not necessarily her personal choice. “And would you like to get even with him? Teach him a lesson that really counts? One he’ll remember before he drops his drawers anyplace but home?” In the next booth, Astrid was already visibly fretting about the imminent advice. Roxy feigned an innocent shrug. It was Friday night, after all. Somebody needed some Friday-night fun. “Because if you do, I’ve got just the right plan. One he won’t be forgetting for a long, long time. I promise you.”
“Yesh…”
Just great. One caller half-soused. She couldn’t blame her because that’s sure what she’d do if she had to go public with her life. Her life… If she took that public, her listeners would be getting all liquored up from boredom. “So are you ready to start teaching, ‘cause this is guaranteed to be a mighty fun lesson.”
“Yesh…because I don’t want to be pushed around by him anymore. And if I confront him, tell him what I know, he’ll just say he’s sorry, beg me to forgive him, then we’ll be fine until he starts sneaking out again.”
On that count, the caller was right. And Roxy was getting herself worked up for some good, on-air two-timer throttling. “You’re right. There sure will be a next time. If he gets away with it this time, he’ll figure he can go out and do it all over again. Once he’s had seconds, he’ll want thirds and fourths and it’ll never stop.”
“So tell me what to do, Doctor Val. I want to get even with the jerk, and I definitely want to teach him a lesson.”
Roxy took a drink of her orange soda, then laughed into the microphone. It was a throaty, deep, practiced laugh. A pseudo laugh, one that fit her pseudonym—Doctor Valentine McCarthy. Valentine was her real middle name, McCarthy her married name, although she’d dropped it right after the divorce and hung out her license to practice as Doctor Roxanna Rose, Ph.D. But she liked hiding behind her pseudonym, liked hiding behind her husky pseudo voice, too. And it fit the raven-haired, brown-eyed radio shrink who came out at midnight, talked sex for two hours, then went away to be just plain Roxy again. Make that Roxy with the bright, sunny laugh—cropped-cut, blond-haired, blue-eyed girl next door that she was. Not a thing like her pseudo self, thank heavens.
All things considered though, it worked out pretty well. For both of them.
“Well, my advice is simple. Do unto hubby as hubby would do, and apparently has done, unto you. Have yourself a little fling, too. Then let him know about it. Does his honey have a hunky hubby? Maybe he’d like to get in on some good extracurricular activity, since his little woman is already getting it on her own. Or does your hubby have a lonely hubba-hubba back at his office, down at the lodge, maybe his best friend? If he does, I say go for a young one if you have a choice—they’re so eager and willing to please when it comes to a more experienced woman.
“And that’s what you are. More experienced, not older. Also, finding yourself a younger man will definitely let your hubby know that you’re not over the hill or otherwise checked at the door, that there’s still some mighty good grazing left, even if he isn’t the grazer. Oh, and leave the clues, so he’ll find them. Be obvious. He deserves it.”
“And if I do all of this, Doctor Val, do you think he’ll leave me?”
“Honestly, he could. I’ve gotta be truthful about that. But if he leaves because you’re doing unto him, then he wasn’t going to stay around, anyway. And if he does leave, you’ve got options, ‘cause you can do a whole lot better. But if he doesn’t, I’ll bet he’ll think twice before he wanders off again, knowing you might be wandering off right behind him. Bottom line, dish the dirt, but have a little fun while you’re dishing it. Two more can play at hubby’s game besides hubby and his mistress. And call me back, will you? Let me know if it was good for you.”
Roxy cued Doyle to bring up the program music. “That answer got me all hot and bothered, thinking about all the exciting possibilities that are waiting for us out there if we care enough to go out and hunt them down. So let me go cool off for a minute, then I’ll be right back.” She went to break. Two minutes this time.
“Her husband?” Astrid screamed over the microphone into the booth. “You told her to go out and have an affair with her husband’s mistress’s husband? Come on, Rox. What’s wrong with you? That’s crazy, even for you!”
“You come on, Astrid. When you were dating that guy, Buford, last year, and found out he was sleeping with three other women besides you, didn’t you want some revenge? I mean, who was it that stalked him at night and poured syrup and feathers all over his car?”
“Burton, and yes, I wanted revenge. I’ll admit it. But that was different. And my revenge could be fixed at a car wash.”
“Yeah, you left him the ten-dollar bill under the wind-shield wiper, you wimp. But what I’m saying here is that the emotion’s the same. We get wronged, we want to fight back, whether it’s with the guy’s girlfriend’s hubby or a bottle of syrup. Same thing. And I just gave her an interesting way to fight back. Which she’s not going to do, Astrid. Human nature. She wants to fix her marriage, not make it worse. But I’m betting she’ll let him know, one way or another, that she knows what he’s doing. And if her marriage can be worked out, that’s the start of it.”
“And what if she takes your advice?”
Roxy
