Her marriage to Tom Krome wasn’t ideal; in fact, it had become more or less an empty sketch. Yet that was a tradition among Finley women, hooking up with handsome, self-absorbed men who quickly lost interest in them.
They’d met in Manhattan, in a coffee shop near Radio City. Mary Andrea had initiated contact after noticing that the intent, good-looking man at the end of the counter was reading a biography of Ibsen. What Mary Andrea hadn’t known was that the book had been forced upon Tom Krome by a young woman he was dating (a drama major at NYU), and that he would’ve much rather been delving into the complete life story of Moose Skowron. Nonetheless, Krome was pleased when the auburn-haired stranger moved three stools closer and said she’d once read for a small part in A Doll’s House.
The attraction was instant, though more physical than either of them cared to admit. At the time, Tom Krome was working on a newspaper investigation of Medicaid mills. He was on the trail of a crooked radiologist who spent his Tuesday mornings playing squash at the Downtown Athletic Club instead of reading myelograms, as he’d claimed while billing the government thousands of dollars. Mary Andrea Finley was auditioning for the role of the restless farm wife in a Sam Shepard play.
She and Tom dated for five weeks and then got married at a Catholic church in Park Slope. After that they didn’t see each other much, which meant it took longer to discover they had nothing in common. Tom’s reporting job kept him busy all day, while Mary Andrea’s stage work took care of the nights and weekends. When they managed to arrange time together, they had sex as often as possible. It was one activity in which they were synchronized in all aspects. Overdoing it spared them from having to listen to each other chatter on about their respective careers, in which neither partner honestly held much interest.
Mary Andrea had barely noticed things coming apart. The way she remembered it, one day Tom just walked in with a sad face and asked for a divorce.
Her reply: “Don’t be ridiculous. In five hundred years there’s never been a divorce in the Finley family.”
“That,” Tom had said, “explains all the psychos.”
Mary Andrea related this conversation to her counselor at the Mona Pacifica Mineral Spa and Residential Treatment Center in Maui, a facility highly recommended by several of her bicoastal actor friends. When the counselor asked Mary Andrea if she and her husband had ever been wildly happy, she said yes, for about six months.
“Maybe seven,” she added. “Then we reached a plateau. That’s normal, isn’t it, for young couples? The problem is, Tom’s not a ‘plateau’ type of personality. He’s got to be either going up, or going down. Climbing, or falling.”
The counselor said, “I get the picture.”
“Now he has lawyers and process servers chasing me. It’s very inconsiderate.” Mary Andrea was a proud person.
“Do you have reason to believe he’d change his mind about the marriage?”
“Who’s trying to change his mind? I just want him to forget this absurd idea of a divorce.”
The counselor looked bemused. Mary Andrea went on to offer the view that divorce as an institution was becoming obsolete. “Superfluous. Unnecessary,” she added.
“It’s getting late,” said the counselor. “Would you like something to help you sleep?”
“Look at Shirley MacLaine. She didn’t live with her husband for, what, thirty years? Most people didn’t even know she was married. That’s the way to handle it.”
Mary Andrea’s theory was that divorce left a person exposed and vulnerable, while remaining married—even if you didn’t stay with your spouse—provided a cone of protection.
“Nobody else can get their meat hooks in you,” she elaborated. “Legally speaking.”
The counselor said, “I’d never thought of it that way.”
“OK, it’s just a silly piece of paper. But don’t think of it as a trap, think of it as a bulletproof shield,” said Mary Andrea Finley Krome. “Shirley’s got the right idea. Could you ask them to bring me a cup of Earl Grey?”
“You’re feeling better?”
“Much. I’ll be out of your hair in a day or two.”