From across the parking lot, I could hear piercing wails emanating from the circle of churchgoers surrounding our SUV.
The crowd ebbed and flowed, as the moans morphed into incensed shouts. Once I was just a few rows of cars away, and within earshot of the indignant screamer, I knew exactly whose cries they were.
“This is how you thank the businessmen who build this country?! We’re saving lives! If you don’t like it, don’t join; go be a punk — ”
The onlookers weren’t really gathered around my husband’s SUV, but rather my dad’s adjacent sedan — with all four tires slashed and deflating, clueing us into the threat on his windshield and the duct-taped message on his trunk.
Correction: The vehicular vandalism may have drawn them in initially, but my dad’s impassioned diatribe is the spectacle that kept them there, mouths agape, stifling laughter, with countless phones recording his hysterics, probably for some viral TikTok post we’ll never see.
The second I broke through the circle, my dad thrust me the folded-up note he’d torn off the sharpie and tape-defaced vehicle.
“You see this?! Butthurt punks out there. Like Elizabeth Holmes said, first they think you’re crazy, then you change the world — ”
Quoting Elizabeth Holmes (the disgraced Theranos founder, convicted of actual wire fraud) in the middle of an audience of local financiers — some of whom also lost millions to her scandal — probably isn’t the best “get out of church free” card around here.
I wonder if that line came from his ex-felon mentor, too…
“You read that? He’s threatening my business!”
I did read it — and after the last Sunday altercation, I can’t say I’m surprised. Whether your church has 200 members or 12,000+, news of an illicit pyramid scheme travels fast — and my dad clearly targeted the wrong victim…I mean client?
My husband caught up, his eyes buried in an email on his phone until another piercing cry erupted:
“What the fu — ”
He’d sailed past my defiant dad and his crap-show of a car to investigate a new scratch on the black Bentley SUV’s paint job.
“You see this?”
It was like déjà vu, except Hubby soared right into his phone contacts to text his go-to car detailer for a paint buffing. He didn’t know, care, or want to know who’d scratched his SUV. My dad, however, wanted a witch hunt and a face-off. I just want to know if the SUV scratch was purposeful, too, and the same person’s doing. The last thing we need is my dad’s enemies showing up at our door, though given his current residence in our guest house, that may be exactly where they’re led.
My husband’s leading lady holds all the cards
A bedazzled Rolls Royce darted into my lane, cutting me off on my race to the rescue. Moments earlier, an exasperated FaceTime call from my mom had given me a rooftop garden bird’s eye view of the alleyway commotion below: The black-market “crystal readings” caravan was inciting a frenzy, and after the unpermitted construction fines and snooping neighbors, the Corona del Mar (CDM) duplex doesn’t need one more run-in with local law enforcement.
The Rolls beat me to the last light into CDM from the coastal highway, forcing me into her lane for the sharp turn onto Marigold Ave. As she rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Even with bejeweled sunglasses obstructing half her face, her slender arm and diamond-cloaked hand were unmistakable, as she maintained an animated conversation with a phone — or camera? — perched diagonally to her upper left, affixed to the Rolls’ roof.
Her vehicle’s tail disappeared onto Marigold, briefly flashing me the damning license plate to seal the deal: “HERBWIFE”
Yasmin, Herb’s wife — and my new forced “friend” (until Hubby secures a hard-money loan from her husband) — had been drawn all the way from the Peninsula to the CDM flower streets, too. Strange coincidence.
For this side of the PCH, Marigold was far more parked up than usual, and judging by the variety of cars lining both sides of the narrow street, the visitors were far from local. How is it the scandals I dismantle boast a waiting audience, while my husband can pimp out, defraud, and hustle half of Southern California without the neighbors batting an eye?
I swerved around 4th Ave to steal a rare unclaimed spot, then found myself navigating a line of women — and some men — that wrapped all the way from the alleyway carport around the next two blocks.
My mom stood at the rear unit duplex’s front gate, shooing back the appointment-confirmed guests and unsuccessfully attempting to poison Star’s loyal customers against her.
“Nice try, I’m not leaving. If you want a reading, you can book it on IG like the rest of us. And go to the back of the line.”
An unwavering Star worshipper jammed a finger in my mom’s face, then pointed it to the growing line a block behind.
Approaching the tarot, psychic, and crystal reading wagon from the duplex’s private side walkway, alongside my now infuriated mom (who actually pays rent to live there), a three-way catfight had just broken out.
“My confirmation says 2:30. I’ve been waiting here for an hour.”
“My DM says 2:30, too.”
“But, I got a text that says…”
The first two women waved their digital appointment confirmations in the air — and in each other’s faces. The third, a softer spoken voice hailing down from about 6 feet above her 6-inch heels, drew Star’s gaze — and mine. Star beckoned Yasmin forward, into her shaded carriage, telling the other two:
“Sorry, she paid for VIP. You’ll be next. I’ll add a complimentary chakra alignment for your patience.”
My mom jerked my arm forward, pulling us both towards the curtain-closed carriage. She violently yanked the curtain aside, ducking her — and by default, my — head into Star’s private karma-controlled haven on wheels. Both Star and Yasmin looked up at her shocked, Yasmin’s eyebrows as high as her latest round of Botox would allow.
“Excuse me?!”
Star batted my mom back with a feather duster (or some prop with feathers on the end of a handheld stick) and tugged the curtain closed. From inside, she projected aggressively: “Thank you for your patience.”
Before I could restrain her, my mom dove forward, snatching the curtain and intruding upon Yasmin’s private reading once again.
“You can’t do this here! I live here! This is a residential neighborhood — and you’re blocking the entire alley, the carport, and there are a hundred strangers at my door.”
Star rolled her eyes at my mom’s outburst; she was right, but the fact that Star’s screwing my dad is probably exacerbating my mom’s frustration.
“I’ll call up my landlord right now! He’ll have you thrown out. Arrested — ”
Star smirked upon my mom’s reference to Hubby as her landlord. He is, in fact, the owner of the duplex, but unfortunately, the dispersion of power and loyalty in our broken family is a bit…unorthodox to say the least.
“Call your husband. He’ll listen to you.”
My mom nudged me, clearly unaware of the underlying dynamics between me, Hubby, Star, and Yasmin. Star attempted to reassert control once more:
“This is my business address. When your landlord completes my sunroom, I can take it upstairs. For now, I have customers. Thank you.”
This time, my mom snatched my phone and began scanning my texts for Hubby’s number.
“I’ll call him right now.”
I wrestled the phone out of her hands, but not before Star began scrolling through her own phone’s contacts. On speaker, Hubby’s voice answered in the chipper tone he reserves for investors and sales meetings.
My mom’s eyes bulged and she twitched her head forward, silently urging me to speak up, to stand my ground, and to go head-to-head with the fraud in the wagon. But I knew it was pointless: With Star’s VIP fan, Yasmin in the carriage, and Hubby’s recent efforts to crawl into her loan shark husband’s bed, I’m not the woman calling the shots in this equation.
When in doubt, get cryptic — or crypto
I scooted down the ferry bench, inching towards the man who wouldn’t look me in the eye. Once the boat left Balboa’s dock and headed for the Peninsula across the waterway, he slid a familiar envelope into my lap. I slipped the thumb drive into my pocket, then flipped through the printed images as he discreetly narrated his findings.
“We have eyes on Vegas and the private airport. But there’s something more concerning.”
I thumbed back through the pictures, in search of the image in reference.
“It’s not in there. Limited records are on the drive. Disappearing funds — transferred into the aviation venture, then dispersed or extracted, and poof.”
I gulped down the news, attempting to digest why or how another one of Hubby’s expensive business endeavors was so much more concerning than the rest. Lucky for me, my PI didn’t keep me guessing too long:
“Best guess is he’s transferring them to crypto wallets. From there, who knows. If you’re moving forward with this divorce, I would move fast. If you don’t have a judge freeze his account activity, I’m not sure what will be left. It’ll still be there, I’m sure, but finding it, proving it, and accessing it may be next to impossible.”
It seems extreme — even paranoid — to think my husband would be moving money into a new venture, then stowing it away in secret crypto wallets, all as a defensive pre-divorce tactic. But then again, my PI said it, not I…
On the other hand, am I really that vain to believe he’s stashing his money into crypto on my behalf? Am I really that much of a threat — or a leech? Maybe it’s just to obscure the illicit transactional activity taking place in that mile high hustler’s club. Like more of a “CYA” than an “F My Wife”. He’s protecting himself, not preemptively sidelining me, right?
A rational, law-abiding partner would be just as disturbed by either option. Sometimes, however, marriage becomes a game of cat and mouse, and prolonging the inevitable is a matter of survival. I’m not saying I’d rather my husband engage in unscrupulous ventures than ice me out of our finances…but honestly speaking, wouldn’t you?
No one is safe on judgment day
I stumbled off the ramp alone, leaving my PI on the ferry back to Balboa, with a drafted text one tap away from incriminating my husband.
I should drive this USB straight to Ritz Cove right now, into the hands of the woman who can change everything. But then, that would mean excusing myself from his mistress’s offer permanently…
It would mean walking away from what may be an even bigger payday than any divorce from my husband — especially once he siphons off our money into his crypto hideaways.
It would also mean losing my leverage as his wife — well, whatever leverage I have. Though, in retrospect, it seems like I’m the weakest shot-caller in his circle. If I stay for money, or leverage, or any other benefit from being protected by the veil of his resources, does that make me the user in this relationship?
Perhaps I’ve been wrong to spy, or distrust, or keep secrets of my own. Maybe we’ve all been wrong. I guess no one’s safe on judgment day.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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