The Secret Ingredient

The Secret Ingredient

Prologue

If only he would change… If only I could change him…

Is there a wife on the planet who doesn’t harbor such thoughts occasionally?

Go on, admit it. There’s at least one characteristic about your husband that you’re dying to change, isn’t there? More than one, I’ll bet — everything from the way he forgets to cap the tube of toothpaste to the way he forgets your anniversary. And why is this the state of affairs? Because at some point — even if your relationship got off to a promising start, even if your union seemed destined for greatness, even if your man has genuinely admirable qualities — there comes that inevitable period of dissatisfaction in every marriage or romantic partnership when minor irritants become mega-irritants; the inevitable realization that he is no longer writing you intimate little notes, surprising you with bouquets of flowers, rendezvousing with you in the middle of the day for a roll in the hay; the inevitable moment when you look at him as he’s splayed out on the sofa, fiddling with the TV remote, feeding his face with something disgustingly artery-clogging, oblivious to your very existence, and you wonder, Who the heck is this bozo? Where’s the prize I won? And how do I get that guy back? What is also inevitable is that you will decide that the trick to getting him back is by you fixing him. It’s an automatic reflex on our part, an irresistible impulse, a foolhardy descent into what psycho-therapists call “magical thinking.”

There. I’ve said it. Magical. The M word. The word that figures prominently in the story I’m about to share with you, the story involving my own marriage.

It was a marriage that began well, as most marriages do, with an auspicious first encounter to kick it off. People always say that love comes calling when you least expect it, and that was certainly the case with us.

How did Roger and I meet? He rescued me on the 405 — the “dreaded 405,” as southern Californians refer to the freeway whose traffic is the stuff of nightmares, particularly at rush hour. My car had overheated, and I’d managed to navigate it across six lanes to the shoulder, after which I’d climbed out, planted myself on the pavement in the blistering August sun, and prayed for some good Samaritan to help me. (I appreciate that many women know exactly what to do when their cars break down — women who can reel off the name and purpose of each hose and belt and wire under the hood — but I am not one of them. I don’t even know how to fill my own gas tank; among my favorite words in the English language are full serve.)

So there I was, sweltering, stewing, speculating about how I would ever make it back to my townhouse in Santa Monica before dark, when a car pulled up behind mine and a man got out.

Be careful what you wish for, I thought as he walked toward me, setting off an orgy of “what ifs” in my head. Like, What if he’s a serial murderer whose M.O. is that he pretends to be a rescuer of women but then abducts them, drags them back to his lair, and kills them by some hideously inventive method?

“I see you’ve got a problem with your car,” said the man, who wore a friendly, if not downright cheerful, statement.

I squinted, gave him the once-over. He was about my age — thirties — and handsome, although hardly GQ cover-model material. He was in the six-foot range, lean but broad-shouldered, and he had curly brown hair, a prominent jaw and nose, and, to the right of his mouth, a very deep dimple, an indentation I found quite adorable. He was nicely dressed too — well-tailored sport jacket and slacks, open-necked shirt, sporty loafers. And, when he removed his sunglasses, he revealed a pair of soulful, thoroughly captivating green eyes. Still, I couldn’t let my guard down. Ted Bundy wasn’t bad-looking either.

“Yes,” I said. “I think the engine overheated. A little red light went on, and the next thing I knew the car smelled like some oily fish that was left on the grill too long.”

He laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You,” he said. “You have a funny way of describing things.”

“How can you tell?” I said. “I only described one thing. Maybe the way I describe other things isn’t funny at all.”

“Maybe, but let’s try you out,” he said. “How would you describe me, for instance?”

“How would I — ” This was weird. Weird, but interesting. “Well, for starters, you have a sinkhole in your cheek.”

He laughed again, running his fingers over his dimple. And then he gave me the once-over, his green eyes skipping over my body, which was as thrilling as it was discomforting. “Back to business,” he said, as if reminding himself to be a Boy Scout. “I’m sure you’d prefer dealing with your car problems to discussing the peculiarities of my face.”

Not necessarily. I liked his face. “Right you are,” I said. “Do you know how to fix my engine?”

“Fix it? Sorry, I’m a real estate attorney, not a mechanic. But I’d be glad to lend you my cell phone so you could call for a tow.”

“That would be great. I would use my own cell phone, but, like the car, it isn’t working. It’s just not my day, I guess.”

“The day’s not over yet. Stay positive. Let’s walk back to my car and you can call from there.”

I followed Mr. Positive to his car, a silver Mitsubishi something-or-other, but I refused to get in.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“How do I know you’re not going to kidnap me?” I said.

He laughed again. “I don’t usually have to kidnap women to get them to go out with me.”

Go out with him? That wasn’t what I’d meant, obviously. But since he mentioned it and since I was unattached, the idea was rather appealing, provided he wasn’t one of America’s Most Wanted.

I peered inside his car. No weapons that I could spot. No drops of blood. No newspaper clippings of his heinous crimes. I did see a shopping bag full of children’s toys resting on the back seat and was curious about it.

“Are you married?” I asked.

“Why?” he said. “Are you proposing?”

“No. I was wondering if the toys were for your kids.”

“For one kid. I’m in the Big Brother program and my Little Brother is a six-year-old. I get together with him once a week.”

So he was a lawyer with a conscience. A lawyer with a conscience who was also attractive and single. Maybe he was right; the day would turn out better than I’d thought.

I got in his car and called AAA. “They said they’ll be here in forty-five minutes,” I reported after I’d finished with the dispatcher, “which means it’ll be more like two hours.” I reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the phone. I really appreciate it. Take care.”

“Hey, where are you going?” he asked as I was about to return to my poor excuse for an automobile. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Oh.” I grabbed his hand and shook it. “It’s Elizabeth.”

“Nice to meet you, Elizabeth. I’m Roger. And I don’t intend to let you wait on the dreaded 405 for two hours by yourself. We’re in this together. So which will it be? Your car or mine?”

He wanted to wait with me? What was that about?

“What’s wrong now?” he said. “You’re staring at me.”

“Sorry. I was just wondering why you don’t have to be anyplace.” Like back at the federal prison before bed check.

“Who said I don’t have to be anyplace?” He picked up his cell phone, punched in a number, and told someone named Samantha that he wouldn’t be able to make the movie after all.

“Am I hearing things or did you just cancel a date?”

“Actually, I think I just cancelled a relationship.”

“Cancelled a–” I felt guilty. Okay, no, I didn’t. I was beginning to really like this guy.

“Listen, I know this is going to sound crazy, Elizabeth, but have you ever had a hunch that you were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right person?”

“That’s a pretty heavy thing to say,” I remarked, counting all the exactlys. Roger was either a kook or a catch, and I was definitely sticking around to find out which one.

“I don’t want to scare you,” he said lightly. “Why don’t I put on some music while you digest my question. Do you like Eric Clapton?”

“Who doesn’t?” I said, settling into the passenger seat of his car as he popped in a CD.

“How about something to drink? I’ve got bottled water in the cooler.”

“Water would be wonderful, thanks.”

He reached into the back seat, retrieved two plastic bottles, and handed me one. Then he clinked his bottle against mine. Well, not clinked; plastic doesn’t really clink. “Here’s to being in the right place at the right time with the right person.”

“May I ask you a question, Roger?”

“Fire away.”

“‘What makes you think I’m the right person?”

He took a swallow of water before answering. “Because my heart is leaping around in my chest in a way it’s never done before. Of course, I could be going into cardiac arrest, but since I’m only thirty-four years old and I keep fit and eat healthy and try not to indulge in type A behavior, my guess is I’m falling in love.”

I couldn’t believe this. I absolutely could not believe this. Let me add, though, that I wanted very much to believe it.

“So you do think this is crazy,” he went on. “You’re too cynical to buy the whole love-at-first-sight thing, is that it?”

“Well, sure I’m cynical. You don’t even know me. And while I’m very grateful for your help today, I don’t know you either.”

“Do you have any desire to know me?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Then why don’t I get started?”

While we sat in his car for two-and-a-half hours, he told me about himself, let me know him, injecting the story with charming, self-deprecating jokes. What I learned that day about Roger Baskin was that he was a good, kind man to whom the words “What can I do to help?” came naturally; that he considered it a no-brainer that he would volunteer in the Big Brother program instead of spending his free time on a golf course; that, because his parents had died of cancer within a year of each other, he had a maturity about him, an understanding of how to be alone without being lonely. I learned that he loved the beach and swam in the Pacific when it was too cold for most mortals; that he loved camping and slept under the sky even in crummy weather; that he loved dancing and had earned the nickname “disco king” back in college. I learned that he was smart — not an intellectual, but bright, quick, well educated; that he was a partner in his law firm and worked hard but not compulsively; that he was successful but not one of those awful strivers who is consumed by his place in some pecking order. Mostly what I learned about Roger, by the end of those two-and-a-half hours, was that I wanted to marry him. And so I did marry him, a mere eight months later. We anticipated that we would enjoy a long and happy life together.

Six years into the marriage, however, our relationship took the unfortunate turn I hinted at earlier.

What happened was this: I, Elizabeth Baskin, an otherwise risk-adverse, play-it-safe sort, had the brazenness, the impudence, the gall to mess with Mother Nature, and the result was a total disaster.

No, I did not have a botched face-lift. My miscalculation was far more serious — a truly bad, bad thing.

I’m not suggesting that I was a paragon of virtue before I committed this act. I had my faults, just like the next person. I spent too much money on my clothes. I had a habit of employing sarcasm whenever I was trying to mask my true feelings. I was often suspicious of people, as I demonstrated during my first interaction with Roger. And — this was, perhaps, my most glaring shortcoming — I was obsessively neat. (I viewed my Dust-busters with the kind of reverence others reserve for their televisions.)

But on the whole, I was a decent woman, not somebody you would point to and say, “Watch out for that one.” What’s more, I’m not so sure that, if you’d been in my situation, you wouldn’t have done the same bad, bad thing that I did. If only he would change. . . If only I could change him. . . You’ve uttered those words, remember? You have. It’s possible that you, too, would have used a little magic, reached for the quick fix, resorted to the identical strategy I did — the bonehead move that riled Mother Nature and sullied my marriage to Roger, the nice, sweet man who’d saved me on the 405.

Oh, come on. Just hang on a second, would you? I swear this won’t be yet another sob story about a woman whose husband took a powder. Not in the conventional sense.

No, this tale has legs. But I suppose the only way to prove it is to dispense with the throat-clearing, spill my guts, and let you make the call about me. Am I worthy of redemption? Did I get what I deserved? Would you have done the same bad, bad thing if you’d been in my Manolo Blahniks?

Chapter One

“Bye, Roger. I’m off to the airport,” I said to my husband one Tuesday morning in March. (I’ve decided to begin the story here because it’s the morning I became aware that I wanted to kill Roger. Well, not kill him, exactly. Just slap him around a little.) “Roger?”

There was no response from him. Not even the slightest flicker. It was as if he were alone in our three-bedroom house on the corner of fifteenth and Idaho in Santa Monica, as if he didn’t have a wife of six years who was about to leave on a business trip, as if he had morphed from a husband who takes his marital responsibilities seriously into a husband who takes his marital responsibilities for granted. Such a shame, wasn’t it? Especially after our dreamy start on that freeway?

“Roger,” I tried again. “I said goodbye.”

He was sitting at the kitchen counter, reading the L.A. Times, drinking coffee, and eating an English muffin. There were crumbs everywhere, including those pesky little seeds that regularly slough off the underside of English muffins. I was itching to grab the nearest Dustbuster, but there wasn’t time. I was running late. The Town Car from Ascot Limo was picking me up any minute to take me to LAX.

“Oh, are you going now, hon?” he said sweetly, innocently, turning his head in my direction at last, answering with a mouthful of food. His question sounded more like Ohyougonaha? I often thought of hiring a translator for those precious moments when Roger spoke while he ate.

“Yes. I’m taking a nine o’clock flight, remember?” I had only told him that ten thousand times.

“When will you be back?”

“Thursday night,” I replied impatiently. I had told him that too. I’d told him where I was going and what time I was going and when I would be home, but he hadn’t been paying attention. Not for a long time. When we were first married, he hung on my every word, not to mention hung up his clothes, and now he did neither. He was always too busy, too tired, too something, and, as a result, I was always carping. “I really wish you’d listen to me when I talk to you, Roger.”

He took a sip of coffee. Slurped it, actually. A renegade drop dribbled down the side of his mug onto the counter. I hated how tempted I was to wipe it up.

“And I really wish you wouldn’t go off on a trip on such a harsh note,” he countered. “Besides, I do listen to you when you talk to me. I’m allowed to forget the details, aren’t I?”

He honestly didn’t get it, didn’t get the disconnect that had occurred between us. Or if he did, he didn’t want to face it — or, God forbid, have a conversation about it.

“You never used to forget the details,” I said wistfully.

“Sorry, hon. You know how tied up with work I’ve been.”

Tied up with work. Ha! Roger had become a card-carrying workaholic. When we were first married, he couldn’t wait to get away from the office so he could be with me. Now, the reverse was true, or at least it seemed that way.

“Is it really work, Roger?” I said. “Is that what’s distracting you? Or is it that the thrill is gone? That our marriage is in trouble?”

“Elizabeth. Don’t start that again.”

“‘Why not? You’ve changed. I can’t help that I notice it.”

“I haven’t changed. It’s just. . . just… I don’t know… reality, I guess. People get bogged down by the routine of marriage, the everyday-ness of marriage, the blah-blah-blah of going to the office and dealing with the house and figuring out whether it’s our turn to have the neighbors over. It can’t be the way it was when we were first married. It never is.

“That’s not true. There are plenty of couples who’ve been married a long time but act like they’re still on their honeymoon.”

“Name one.

I thought for a minute, taking a quick inventory of all our friends, many of whom were no longer our friends because they’d gotten divorced, remarried, and moved on to other friends. “I can’t. Not right this second. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

“Elizabeth.” He said this with a patronizing tone. “I appreciate that you have high standards and demand the best of everything and everybody, but marriage isn’t a honeymoon. It isn’t supposed to be.”

“I don’t believe that. I refuse to believe that. Maybe what’s really going on between us is that you’re having an affair.”

First, he did the jaw drop. Next, he did the eyebrow arch. Then, he did that thing people do with their neck where they sort of extend it forward and hold it there, to register their shock and disbelief — and buy time.

“Nice stall,” I said.

“I’m not stalling,” he said. “I’m just stunned by your question. I’m processing it.”

“What’s to process? A yes or no will do.”

“Elizabeth. What’s gotten into you?” He shook his head, so as to indicate that he thought I was emotionally unstable. “Of course I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Having an affair, for God’s sake!”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“Okay, stop this.” He put his hand up, like a school crossing guard. His palm was smudged with newsprint. His fingertips were glistening with margarine. The cuff of his shirt revealed a small coffee stain. I had an impulse to haul him over to the sink and hose him down. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember what time your flight is leaving this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t remember when you’re scheduled to come home. I’m sorry if you feel I haven’t been as attentive as I should be. But I am not having an affair. I am in love with my wife. And I would appreciate it if she would let me finish my breakfast.”

“Sure. Okay. Fine.”

The truth is, I didn’t really suspect him of having an affair, despite my accusation. When men have affairs, they generally dress spiffier, log in more time at the gym, wear too much cologne. Roger, on the other hand, had slacked off in the area of his personal grooming. Remember the lean and rangy guy who’d rescued me on the 405? Well, sorry to report that he had sprouted baby jowls, not to mention an actual gut. Plus, the hair on his head was beginning to thin while the hair in his nose was beginning to grow, and don’t even get me started on his hopelessly dated wardrobe. No, I didn’t think he was cheating on me I was just trying to be provocative in an effort to shake him up, get him juiced, snap him out of his coma, rekindle his old spark. I would have been devastated if he’d admitted he’d been sleeping around. He’d been acting like a clod lately, but he was my clod.

“I love you too, you know,” I said out loud, inching my way over to him. “That’s why it hurts me so much that we’ve drifted apart.”

“We haven’t drifted apart. I’m right here, hon.” He smiled, showing off the dimpled grin that had made me weak-kneed at our first meeting.

“If we haven’t drifted apart, then why does it feel as if we’re just going through the motions?” I said. “Can you deny that we don’t even communicate?” Sure, I knew relationships went through stages, passages, whatever you want to call them; that the adrenaline rush didn’t last forever. But I wasn’t ready to forfeit excitement for contentment. Not yet, anyway.

“We’re not drifting apart and we’re not going through the motions and we communicate as well as can be expected,” said Roger.

“As well as can be expected? What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, my stomach twisting as it always did when we fought.

He swatted the newspaper at some invisible bug. “Don’t put me on the defensive, Elizabeth. I hate when you do that.”

“Then tell me what you meant by that last remark.”

“Nothing. Let’s just forget I said it.”

I was about to argue that I couldn’t forget it and why should I forget it and once people say something it’s too late to take it back, but I heard the doorbell.

“There’s the car,” I said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I get to Seattle.”

“Right.”

“Right? Is that the best you can do? What if my plane crashes and ‘right’ turns out to be your final word to me? Is that your idea of communication, Roger? Is it? Because I remember a time when you said beautiful words to me — words full of poetry and depth and intimacy. What happened to them, huh? Tell me that, if you can.” I had become unhinged and it was unattractive of me, but the guy was making me nuts.

“Elizabeth.” Roger extended his hand to me.

“What?”

“Come here.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think you should leave like this.”

“How should I leave then?”

“By walking over here and letting me kiss you goodbye.”

Letting him — oh, well, why not, I figured, surprised and delighted that he was the one initiating the physical intimacy for a change. He had said “kiss,” so my assumption was that our lips would make contact and that our tongues might even get involved. For a couple who hadn’t had sex in months, that was pretty hot stuff.

“Roger,” I murmured, my voice softening, my body relaxing. I sidled up to him, rubbed his thigh, and puckered up.

“Travel safely, hon,” he said, then deposited a dry little peck on my cheek.

Yeah, on my cheek. How about that for heat, huh? Now, do you see what I’m talking about?

Where was the passion? The lust? The saliva? Where was the man who was so demonstrative when we were in the throes of our courtship? The man who claimed I turned him on, rang his chimes, lit his fire? The man who was so gallant, so chivalrous, so endearing the day he picked me up on that damn freeway? Was he still in there, still inside that body? Or had he been replaced by somebody’s old-fart uncle? He was only forty at that point — just two years my senior and hardly ready to be carted off to an assisted living facility, So where was the guy I married? How was I going to save him? How was I going to save us?