Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis Read online

  Praise for Robyn Harding

  Unravelled

  “Unravelled is a wonderful story of friendship and finding yourself. I loved it!”

  —Carole Matthews, author of Welcome to the Real World

  and With or Without You

  “Unravelled never drops a stitch. An enjoyable read from beginning to end.”

  —Mary Francis Moore, co-author of The Bittergirls

  “Escape into this quirky story of failed romance, friendship, and selfdiscovery—no knitting required!”

  —Annabel Fitzsimmons, co-author of The Bittergirls

  “Funny and wholly engrossing…. You won’t be able to put it down.”

  —Sarah Mlynowski, author of Milkrun and Me Vs Me

  “Unravelled is a zippy summer read that won’t let you drop any stitches as you flip through the pages.”

  —Elle Canada

  The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom

  “[Robyn Harding] concocts a deft comic look at suburban marriage malaise and a surprising remedy—a friend’s murder that turns her into an unlikely sleuth; contender for best book title of the season.”

  —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  “This hilarious tale of motherhood, marriage, murder and suburban lust is laugh-out-loud funny.”

  —Tucson Citizen

  “Ms. Harding creates characters and a story that will not be forgotten.”

  —Coffeetimeromance.com

  “Are you looking for something light, fun, and funny to finish your summer out? Look no further than this novel. The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom is a breezy Paige-turner, and you’ll want to share it with all your friends.”

  —The Herald-Standard, Pennsylvania

  The Journal of Mortifying Moments

  “Painfully funny … Harding is a skilled writer who is able to transcend and even exploit cliché. ... The Journal of Mortifying Moments is light fiction executed by a writer who knows her craft.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Journal scores with Kerry’s laugh-out-loud tales of shame.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Kerry’s cringe-worthy worst memories are laugh-out-loud funny, and chick lit fans will applaud her honest efforts to break bad behavior patterns.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This is a big, big winner [that] should securely launch Harding on a long and happy career.”

  —Kingston Observer

  “Kerry’s quest to discover the secret to happiness adds up to a laugh-outloud comical read.”

  —Chatelaine

  PENGUIN CANADA

  CHRONICLES OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS

  ROBYN HARDING is the author of The Journal of Mortifying Moments, The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom, and Unravelled. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband and two children.

  Also by Robyn Harding

  The Journal of Mortifying Moments

  The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom

  Unravelled

  Chronicles

  Mid-Life

  Crisis

  PENGUIN CANADA

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,

  Auckland, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published 2008

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

  Copyright © Robyn Harding 2008

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in Canada.

  * * *

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Harding, Robyn

  Chronicles of a mid-life crisis / Robyn Harding.

  ISBN 978-0-14-305375-0

  I. Title.

  PS8615.A715C47 2008 C813’.6 C2008-901706-4

  * * *

  Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

  Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see www.penguin.ca/corporatesales or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 477 or 474

  For My Mom

  Lucy

  I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING. That night, when I walked into the master bathroom and saw my husband dabbing his ring finger delicately around his left eye, I should have known. “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep the smirk out of my voice.

  “Moisturizing,” came his curt reply.

  It was a sign, obviously. But I was so trusting, so naive, that I actually thought it was sort of a good thing. Trent had never cared about his skin before, and I took this late-blooming interest in his epidermis as a sign of long-term maintenance, not vanity. The clothes were another clue.

  “What are you wearing?” I asked, trying to keep the smirk out of my voice.

  “They’re skinny-leg trousers,” he’d replied defensively. “They’re in fashion.”

  In hindsight, it seems so obvious. What forty-three-year-old man would wear skinny-leg trousers unless he was in the throes of a severe mid-life crisis? But unfortunately, I still didn’t clue in. I thought a later-in-life sartorial bent was better than none at all—even if the pants did make him look as though he’d entered a Mick Jagger look-alike contest.

  Unfortunately, these clues, so obvious in retrospect, have done nothing to prepare me. As I sit on the living room sofa facing Trent, I am completely blindsided by his words.

  “It’s not that I don’t love you, Lucy. You’re a wonderful woman … really. It’s just that … I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot. We’ve been together for a long time now, and there’s still a lot I need to experience … on my own.”

  I stare at him, speechless. Despite the skin care and new pants, I still can’t believe my husband is leaving me.

  “We don’t need to look at this as an ending,” he continues. “Let’s look at this as an opportunity to explore who we are as individuals. I want you to take this time to really find out who you are, too.”

  “I know who I am!” I snap. “I’m your wife! I’m Samantha’s mother! I’m forty years old, I’m a Libra, and I’m a props buyer for the film industry!”

  He looks at me with pity. “Is that all?”

  I shriek, “Is that not enough?”

  “I didn’t mean the question so literally. I want you to find out w
ho you are on a deeper level, Luce. I just … it’s hard to explain.”

  “Who is she?” I growl. All this finding himself shit is so transparent. “Is it someone at work? Some twenty-five-year-old at the gym? Who is it? Tell me!”

  “This isn’t about anyone else. It’s about us. We haven’t really been connected for years now, Lucy. We work, we co-parent, we pay the mortgage together, but we’re not together, not like we used to be.”

  “It’s called life, Trent,” I fire back. “It’s called raising a family.”

  “Well, that’s not the way I want to live my life. I want more— for you and for me.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake! “Fine! Have your mid-life crisis. Pack your clothes and get the hell out!”

  Slowly, without looking back, he leaves the living room and moves to the staircase. His posture, the slump of his shoulders, says: I tried, but there’s no reasoning with her. I hear him ascending the stairs, moving deliberately to our bedroom and retrieving his suitcase from the closet. I hear the dull thud as he places it on the bed, unzips it, and begins filling it with his fashionable pants and skin care products.

  I always assumed I’d have a much more dramatic reaction to my husband’s desertion. Not that I’d ever given it much thought, but I’d considered myself the type to slap him, throw dishes, or, potentially, light him on fire. Instead I just sit, still and quiet, on the leather sofa as I listen to my husband preparing to leave me. Other than a slight nausea, I am completely numb.

  It seems like hours, but eventually he reappears. He has left his suitcase by the front door. Hesitantly, he approaches me, a piece of paper in his hand. “I’ll be staying at the Sutton Place Hotel until I get an apartment sorted out. Here’s the number.”

  I look at the piece of paper he’s proffering. “Why would I need the number?”

  “Just in case Samantha wants to talk to me.”

  “I hope you plan on explaining to her why you’re leaving us.”

  “Well …” He rubs at the stubble on his chin, a sure sign that he’s nervous. “I was thinking it might be better coming from you. I mean, you two are so close …”

  “Ha!” I give a humorless laugh. “Nice try.” Since my daughter turned fifteen, close is not the word I’d choose to describe our relationship. Something along the lines of tense, strained, or even fraught would be more appropriate. “I’m not doing your dirty work for you. You can tell her how you want to find yourself on your own.”

  He puffs out his cheeks and lets out a sigh. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to be.”

  This prompts the emergence of the dish-throwing, firelighting lunatic I knew lurked inside me. “Get out! Get out, you selfish bastard!” I scream, grabbing the remote control off the coffee table and hurling it at him. “I can’t believe I gave you eighteen years of my life just to have you throw them down the goddamn toilet!”

  When Trent has scurried out of the house under a hail of remotes, books, and shoes, I collapse on the sofa. Hot tears of anger, disappointment, and loss course down my cheeks. Snot runs unwiped from my nose and a significant amount of saliva coats my face. I sob, I wail, I pound the couch cushions. It is an emotional breakdown entirely befitting the situation. The man I have loved since I was twenty-two years old has just walked out on me. Of course, our marriage hasn’t been perfect—or even particularly pleasant for the last three years or so—but still!

  I allow myself this unfettered wallowing for forty-five minutes. I could easily have continued for at least another half hour, but my daughter will be home from the mall soon and I don’t want her to see me like this. It’s not my duty to explain her father’s abandonment, and if she sees me covered in all manner of mucus she’s going to figure out that something’s wrong. Shuffling to the bathroom, I wipe my face with a cloth dampened in cool water. I still look pretty rough, but given that my daughter rarely looks at me anymore, she’s unlikely to notice. This thought threatens to set me off again, but I compose myself just in time. I hear Samantha’s key in the front door.

  “Hi hon!” I greet her brightly as she enters.

  “Oh, hey,” she replies, not entirely unfriendly.

  I watch my daughter as she slips out of the knee-high suede boots that she simply had to have or she’d be completely ostracized from her peer group. Samantha has her father’s sandyblond hair and tall frame, but her heart-shaped face is all me. As much as she wants to look mature and worldly, there’s something innocent and childlike in her gray, wide-set eyes that no amount of navy eyeliner can erase. Indicating the small shopping bag in her hand, I ask, “What did you buy?”

  “Just some earrings.”

  “That’s nice. Can I see them?”

  She looks at me as she hangs up her coat. “They’re just plain, fake-gold hoops—nothing fancy.”

  “They sound beautiful. Let’s see.”

  Despite my only child’s self-absorbed and rather surly adolescent phase, she’s still tuned into me. “Why do you care about my earrings? Why do you look all puffy? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I reply defensively. “I’ve got allergies. It’s so dusty in here.”

  “Oh, so now your allergies are my fault? If you want me to dust, why don’t you just ask me?”

  “I don’t want you to dust. I was just saying—”

  “Isn’t that why you hired a cleaning lady? Maybe you should be getting mad at her instead of me.”

  “I’m not getting mad at you!” I shriek.

  “Whatevs.” She dismisses me and marches up to her room.

  Well, that went well. At least she didn’t ask where her father was. It’s tempting to return to the couch and my previous emotional breakdown, but I resist. Now that Samantha is home, I’ve got to pull myself together. I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do next. But the thought of living my life without Trent is overwhelming. The tears threaten to return, and I know I can’t get through this on my own. With a shaking hand, I reach for the phone.

  The receiver in my grip, I weigh my options. I’m lucky to have two close friends to turn to in my time of crisis: Hope and Camille. Hope and I met at a Mommy and Me playgroup when Samantha was about three and Hope’s daughter, Sarah-Louise, was slightly older. It was her companionship that helped me survive those trying and isolating toddler years. Of course, she did sometimes make me feel like a defective model of a mother. While I was frequently overwhelmed by my one tiny daughter, Hope managed her brood of three with frightening aplomb. Seriously, she seemed to find the whole experience of having three children under the age of four rather enjoyable. I didn’t get it. But our friendship has endured over the years, and Trent and I spend a lot of time with Hope and Mike. A ragged breath escapes as I correct the tense of my verb: spent a lot of time with Hope and Mike.

  Camille is a friend from work. We’re both props buyers on one of the WB network’s hit teen comedies. Our job is to be briefed on the scripts and then provide all the materials the actors will use on set. When I first started in the business, I felt privileged to be spending ten hours a day shopping with someone else’s money. But when your list is largely composed of baseball gloves, electric scooters, and algebra textbooks, it loses some of its appeal. In contrast to Hope, Camille is single, childless, and quite happy to remain that way. After ending her “starter marriage” in her mid-twenties, she’s been actively involved in the dating scene. Unfortunately, few men are up to her exacting standards and she usually ends up dumping them after a month or two. She used to tell me I was lucky to have married the perfect guy right off the bat. This thought sends a repressed sob shuddering through me.

  I start to dial Hope, and then stop. Maybe Camille is a better choice to support me right now? Hope will show up with chamomile tea and a tin of homemade cookies. She’ll counsel me to be patient and understanding of Trent’s travails. “Give him time,” she’ll probably tell me. “This is a normal rite of passage for men his age.” Camille, on the other hand, will show up with a bottle of wine, if not te
quila. She’ll call Trent all sorts of nasty names: pig, bastard, selfish prick. In fact, she’ll undoubtedly bash his entire gender. “All men are pigs, bastards, selfish pricks! You don’t need him,” she’ll spew. “Get yourself a dildo and you’ll actually be ahead of the game.”

  So who do I turn to for support: Hope with her tea, cookies, and understanding, or Camille with her tequila and righteous anger? I take a deep breath and close my eyes. The sounds of my daughter’s CD player drift down the stairs. She’s listening to some bouncy pop song, blissfully unaware that her father has deserted her, chosen a life of nightclubs, weekends in Vegas, and one-night stands with cocktail waitresses to being her dad. And as an almost overwhelming surge of anger fills me, my decision is made. I dial the number.

  Trent

  GOD, THAT WAS UGLY. I knew Lucy would be shocked and angry, but it had to be done. And I guess it could have been worse. All I got was some sarcasm and a couple of remotes chucked at me. With a woman like Lucy, you never know how she’ll react. I don’t think she’s really capable of murdering me, per se, but I could see her doing something really crazy, like throwing an iron and killing me accidentally.

  I ease the Lexus onto the Burrard Street Bridge and gun the engine. Maneuvering the car through the sparse evening traffic, I feel a newfound sense of freedom. With each mile I put between me and our Point Grey house, I feel more independent … more me. It’s not that I won’t miss my family, Samantha especially, but I need this, I really need this. I’ve lived half my fucking life and I don’t even know who I am anymore. I mean, I know who I’m supposed to be: a father, a husband, and an investment adviser. But I need to get to know myself as a person.

  Lucy doesn’t understand. She’s too wrapped up in presenting a perfect facade to the world: strong, secure marriage; lovingly restored heritage home; artistic, private-schooled daughter; successful careers … If she stopped and took a look at our life, she’d see that it’s not perfect anymore. In fact, it’s not even good anymore. Sure, all the elements are in place, but there’s nothing at the core. It’s just … emptiness. There’s got to be more to life than this fucking hamster-wheel existence.