by Brent, Amy
I picked up the cellphone and tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. The screen was cracked, but I thought the battery might just be dead. It was an iPhone, just like mine. I plugged it into the car charger and held my breath as the phone booted up.
“Okay, Bethany,” I said. “Let’s see who you’ve been talking and texting with.”
It took less than thirty seconds for the mystery to unravel.
I recognized the phone number of the man she’d been fucking immediately. There were over a dozen calls back and forth on the day she died, dozens more in the days before that. The GPS tracker on the phone showed me the places where they had met. My house. A motel on the highway. A hotel in DC.
The text messages bragged about things they had done to one another.
I love the feel of your pussy on my cock…
I love having your cock in my mouth…
I love fucking you in the ass…
I love it when you fuck me from behind…
I tossed the phone in the passenger seat and picked up my own.
I didn’t have to dial the number to reach Bethany’s lover.
It was already in my phone. I’d called it dozens of times.
When he answered, I forced a smile to my face and said, “Hey, it’s me. Where are you right now? I have something you need to see. Okay. Stay there. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Lolita
I had no idea how much little fun kids could be. I’d seen some real brats in my day, especially waitressing at Applebee’s on the weekends, where parents dragged in their snot-nosed kids and strapped them into high chairs and tried to pacify them with crackers while they screamed like banshees and threw shit on the carpet. I swear, you should see the carpet after those little shit heads leave. There are crumbs and crap everywhere, like the bottom of a fucking guinea pig’s cage or something.
But Cody was different, probably because I was falling hard for his daddy. That’s right, it had only been a couple of days, but Ryder and I had developed a bond that ran deeper than just great sex. They say when you meet your soulmate, you just know it. Well, I think I knew it, though I wasn’t sure how he felt. I wasn’t going to say anything, of course. When you’re a younger woman involved with an older man, you had to be very careful how quickly you let yourself fall. Your emotions could be blamed on your lack of experience and immaturity. Fuck that. I knew what I was feeling and I knew that it was real. Still, I wouldn’t say anything unless Ryder did, but I knew in my heart, I was falling fast.
Oh, back to Cody…
He was just the sweetest little boy. When I walked in and Ryder introduced me as his nanny, Cody gave me a hard look, then squealed and threw his little arms around my neck and gave me a tight squeeze when I told him I liked Legos and Barney, even though I had no idea who Barney was. We hit it off immediately. He called me “Lolo” and patted my cheeks between his hands and give me a slobbery peck on the nose.
This morning, I showed up at Ryder’s house just after eight. It would have been so much easier if I had just woken up there, but we knew we had to take things slowly for Cody’s sake. The poor little thing had just lost his mommy and I wasn’t trying to replace her in his life, though maybe someday he wouldn’t mind me sleeping over now and then. I hoped that day would come, but for now, this was perfectly fine with me.
Ryder had a breakfast meeting with his boss and was going to deal with Bethany’s car. I didn’t envy his task. I could only imagine the state the car was in. And to stand there knowing it was the car someone you once loved died in would be a lot to handle. I’d bawl like a baby, but Ryder was a rock. He would probably be bummed when he got home. It would be my job to make him feel better. Luckily, it was a job I was well-qualified to do.
* * *
Cody was in the pool with inflatable floaties around his upper arms. He didn’t know how to swim and was hesitant to get in the pool at first, but once I got him in the water and he realized that he wasn’t going to drown, he started having a ball. I was sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water, watching him paddle around, squealing, laughing. I looked up at the sky. The sun was hidden behind thick, gray clouds, but the air was still hot and humid. A perfect day to hit the pool without worrying too much about a sunburn. I’d slathered Cody in sunscreen anyway, as any good nanny would do. Then, out of the blue, my mother appeared at the kitchen door.
“What are you doing home?” I asked, shielding my eyes with a hand to peer at her like a sailor spotting the shore. “What time is it?”
“It’s lunch time,” she snapped. “And I came home to make sure you weren’t fucking up your life!”
“Excuse me?” I nodded at Cody. “I’m working. Watch your language. What are you talking about?”
“I know what you’re doing, Lolita,” she said, walking toward me with her hands on her hips and a fiery look in her eye. She forced a playful smile and waved at Cody, then sat in the deck chair near me and lowered her voice. “What the fuck are you thinking? Are you crazy? Fucking the guy next door?”
I put on a defensive air and tried to act innocent, something I’d never been good at doing. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said. “I know what you’ve been doing. He’s lucky I don’t call the police on him!”
“Mother, what the fuck are you talking about?”
She narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “Kevin told me what happened. So, did Mrs. Crown. What the hell are you thinking?”
“Kevin?” I rolled my eyes. “What did he tell you? And when have you ever believed anything old Mrs. Crown had to say?”
“When Kevin calls me at work and tells me that my nineteen-year-old daughter is fucking the older guy next door, you bet your ass I’m going to listen.” She said it, then waited for me to respond. I could tell by the look in her eyes that no amount of lying was going to put her off, so I tried a diversionary tactic.
“Mom, Kevin showed up here Friday night high as a kite and tried to force his way into the house with a knife,” I said, louder than I should have because Cody stopped paddling his arms and gave me a frightened look. His eyes grew wide and his bottom lip quivered. I slid into the water and took his hands and started pulling him around the shallow end. He made motorboat sounds with his lips, like his daddy does when he’s blowing on my nipples.
“Mrs. Crown called and told me she saw that man come into our house Friday morning and he didn’t leave until it was almost time for me to come home from work. And she said you were in and out of his house all weekend.” She tried to put a sing-song lilt in her voice to keep Cody from freaking out. “I guess she was lying, too?”
“Mrs. Crown and Kevin need to mind their own business,” I said, smiling at Cody, pulling him in a circle. “I can’t believe you’d take their word over mine.”
Mom looked at me for a moment, sitting on the edge of the deck chair with her elbows on her knees, sweating through her silk blouse in the noonday sun. I glanced at her. She didn’t look angry. Christ, what did she have to be angry about? I got to him before she did. What was the big deal. No, she looked… frightened. It was a look I’d never seen on my mother’s face before. I won’t lie. It scared me a little bit.
“Lolita, I know you think you’re grown…”
“I am grown, mother,” I shot back.
“Your body might be, but your heart and your mind…”
“Mom, are you seriously going to lecture me about having sex?” I rolled my eyes and made Cody laugh. “You? Of all people?”
I immediately regretted saying it. A look of deep hurt washed over her pretty face. Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” she said quietly. “But I know how it is when you’re a young girl attracted to an older man. You can get hurt so easily, honey. Please, you have to stop this before it goes any further.”
I gave Cody a floating duck and he occupied himself with motorboating it around the shallow end of the pool, the floaties on
his arms keeping him buoyant as he kicked his feet. I went to the side of the pool near my mother and watched her wipe tears away with her fingertips.
“How do you know about older men?” I asked. When she didn’t answer, I knew why. “It was my father, wasn’t it? You told me you didn’t know who my father was, but that was a lie. He was an older man, wasn’t he?”
She blinked at me a few times and rubbed a knuckle under her nose. She said, “Yes. Your father was an older man.”
“Who was he?”
She bit her bottom lip and set her eyes on Cody, who was slapping the water and giggling when it splashed in his face. She didn’t look at me as she spoke. “His name was Percy Hall,” she said quietly. “He was my high school English teacher.”
“Holy shit, mom,” I said, my heart wrenching in my chest. “Mr. Hall was my English teacher in the tenth grade. Everybody called him Pervy Hall because of the way he stared at the girls. Oh, my god… He’s so…”
“Old and creepy?” she said, nodding. “Twenty years ago, he was young and handsome. And I wasn’t the only girl he slept with. For all I know you may have brothers and sisters all over town.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this?” I asked, anger slowly replacing my concern for her. My voice became a loud whisper. Pervy Hall was my father? Pervy Hall, the creepy teacher who wore stained, short-sleeve, white shirts and twenty-year-old neckties, and wrinkled khakis that everyone made fun of. I honestly didn’t know what to do with that knowledge other than wish it wasn’t true, though I could tell by the look on her face that it was.
I asked, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me who my dad was?”
“Because he was a piece of shit that slept with teenage girls,” she said, her voice cracking. Cody wasn’t paying attention. He was fixated on the rubber duck. “I told him I was pregnant and he said I should get an abortion. He offered to pay for it, but I refused. I wanted you. Christ, I wanted him. I thought if I had you, he would marry me and we’d live happily ever after. It took me a long time to realize that I was not the only girl he was having sex with. I would never want him to have anything to do with you. Never ever.”
“Ryder’s not like that,” I said quietly.
She huffed a laugh. “Oh, it’s Ryder, is it. That’s what you call him?”
“That’s his name, mom,” I said defensively. “He cares for me and I care for him.”
“Jesus Christ, Lolita, you don’t even know the man,” she said, struggling to maintain her calm. “You just met him. And you slept with him on Friday… oh my god… you were with him all weekend, weren’t you? You told me you were looking after Cody for him, but that was a lie. You were in his house all weekend fucking him, weren’t you?”
“It’s not like you were here,” I said, snorting at her. “You were out fucking Otto or whatever the fuck his name is. What do you care what I do?”
“Because I’m your mother,” she said. I laughed at the words.
“So, it’s okay for me to fuck Kevin and any guy from school or work, but I sleep with Ryder and it’s not okay.”
“Honey, he is so much older than you,” she said. “He should know better. And Jesus, his wife just died, Lo. You’re fucking a guy in his dead wife’s bed. That is just wrong on so many levels!”
“You won’t feel that way after you meet him,” I said, shaking my head firmly. “Ryder is a wonderful man. You don’t know anything about their life. She was divorcing him and was pregnant with another dude’s baby when she died.”
“Oh, my god,” mom said, putting a hand to her lips. “That’s awful.”
“I know, right? Their marriage was over. All he had to do when he returned from Iraq was sign the papers. She was seeing another guy.” I took a deep breath and lowered my voice. “Ryder is a wonderful man, mom. You’re gonna love him. Just wait and see.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, pushing herself out of the chair. Her face glistened with sweat. The white silk blouse stuck to her skin. “I’m going to change and go back to work. This conversation is not finished. And you keep your ass out of his house until we settle this. Do you understand?”
Mom had a way of making me feel like a little girl. She glared at me until my head started bobbing on its own. She glanced at Cody and shook her head. I knew exactly what she was thinking. An older man knocked her up when she was sixteen and forever changed her life. Now, here I was, sleeping with an older man at nineteen, taking care of his four-year-old son.
She always wanted the best for me.
She prayed that I would not repeat her mistakes, yet here I was.
I didn’t give birth to a child and the man I was sleeping with wasn’t my douchebag teacher, but the similarities were enough to make me stop and think.
What if she was right…
Ryder
I parked the Rover in the lot and sat there for a moment with the cold air blowing from the dash on my face, collecting my thoughts, thinking about what I wanted to say and do, then wondering if I should say or do anything at all.
I guess I could understand what happened between him and Bethany, and could understand why, I mean, once I pushed all the anger and feelings of betrayal out of my mind. I understood how Bethany would find him attractive, at least from an emotional point of view. They were always close, though I never thought for one moment that they would have an affair, but who knows what people will do given the opportunity. Bethany probably blamed me for her cheating.
If I had been a better husband…
If I had been home more…
If I had been more attentive…
But to sleep with him…
She not only betrayed me…
She betrayed those she loved most of all.
I heard a tapping on the passenger side window.
I glanced up and there he was. Smiling at me with his eyebrows cocked, no doubt wondering what was up. I hit the button to unlock the door. He pulled open the door and stuck his head inside.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked, the smile melting to a frown when he saw the look on my face. “Everything okay?”
“Get in,” I said with my hand on the gear shift. “We need to talk.”
“I’m a little busy at the moment, Ben.” He gave me a funny look, but didn’t get in the car. “What’s going on?”
I slowly turned my head to look him in the eye. I held up Bethany’s cellphone. I wiggled it at him. “This was Bethany’s. I know everything. Now get in the fucking car, Hank.”
* * *
Hank’s eyes widened and his lower lip dropped as he stared at the phone, obviously knowing the evidence it contained of his affair with my wife. He turned toward one of his helpers, who was loading PVC pipe into the back of a van and told him he’d be back soon.
He didn’t say anything as he slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. I put the gear into Drive and slowly pulled out of the lot. Hank’s shop was just outside of Falls Church in a light industrial park. The traffic was minimal, so it only took a few minutes for me to find a vacant parking lot where we could sit and talk. The lot was also secluded, so if I wanted to beat the living shit out of Hank, I would be able to do so without interruption.
I parked the Rover and left the engine and AC running, hoping it would help me keep my cool. I could feel a trickle of sweat sluicing its way down my spine. My entire body felt like it was on fire, tense, ready to go. I’d been in enough firefights and fistfights to know it was the adrenaline pumping. My brain was instinctively telling my muscles to get ready, just in case I had to kill somebody before they tried to kill me.
I put the gear into Park and turned sideways in the seat to face him. I still had Bethany’s cellphone in my hand.
Hank nervously cleared his throat and looked at me with fear in his eyes. I’d never seen him look nervous before, but now he looked like he was about to shit his pants. The respect and admiration I had held for him was gone. I didn’t want to be like Hank anymore. Hell, as it turned out, Hank was more like
me than I had ever imagined.
He put out his hands and patted the air with them. “Ben, listen, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but…”
“Shut up, Hank,” I said with a heavy sigh, rubbing my eyes. “I know what happened. So, show a little respect and at least tell me the truth. Be a fucking man for God sake.”
His pudgy face was turning red. His high forehead and upper lip were dotted with sweat even though it was cold in the Rover. He stank of sweat and grease and body odor. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what Bethany saw in the guy. Then I remembered her commenting once that looks weren’t everything. It was what was on the inside that mattered. At the moment, Hank looked like his insides were turning to mush.
When Hank didn’t say anything, obviously hopeful his silence would diffuse the situation, I opened Bethany’s phone’s text messages and read him a few of the things he’d sent her.
“BR, love your tight pussy. Love it when you ride my cock. Love it when you suck so hard on my cock it takes my breath away. XOXO, HP.” I winced at him. “XOXO… really, Hank Perkins? How fucking old are you?”
“I know,” he muttered, staring through the windshield. His right hand crept to the door handle, like he was thinking of making a getaway.
“I wouldn’t open that door, Hank,” I said calmly. “The reason we’re talking in here is so I won’t pound the shit out of you. You run out into that hot parking lot and I may just run you down and keep going. It’s too hot out there. Relax. Sit back. Enjoy the cool air.”
“Ben, listen, you have to understand. I’m not the kind of guy…”
I held up my hand and read a few texts from Bethany to him. “HP… I love your hugs and kisses and the way you take me in your arms and tell me everything will be okay.” I paused to take a shuddering breath. “I know others will be hurt when we tell them about our love, but we will be happy, my darling… So very happy … BR.”