Of course, when he started to see Sandra dinners out stopped. I understood. Jack and I were possibly better friends than we were lovers. As lovers, we were wild, depraved, sadistic. As friends, you couldn’t ask for a better man. He made sure I was taken care of, I can tell you that. He knew he was going to die. I don’t know how he knew it, but he did. I read the paper, so I saw the obit right off. I was devastated. He had given me an envelope with twenty thousand cash about six weeks before he died.
“Take this doll, and get it in a safe place. I don’t care where you put it. You can use a bank but only for part of it, a little each month. Or they start asking questions. That house you are in is safe enough.” He bought a real safe and installed it in my bathroom closet. He used a hand drill so my housemates wouldn’t hear the noise, and stuck it way in back, on the floor. That thing isn’t budging; no one will be able to get it out.
Over the years he has given me money and I have a nice little nest egg, thanks to Jack. Until he died he was giving me two thousand a month. I don’t have to touch what is banked. Twenty thousand will last me a long time. It doesn’t take much to live the kind of life I live. He bought my house for me. I live in the Bronx. I love it up here. I teach anthropology at the community college. My house is within walking distance from school and only during the worst winter snow does it feel too far. Jack also loved the Bronx. He told me his father once had an office there. He and his father had a great relationship and Jack was devastated when he died; it almost destroyed him. I saw a big change in Jack at that time. He lost a lot of his zest for living.
I am a New Yorker through and through. My parents lived in Bronxville until 2002 and then they couldn’t stand it anymore and moved to Florida. I thought that was very passive aggressive. I’m almost an albino for Christ’s sake! How can I go to Florida? Unless I become one of those women you see who wear the long sleeved suits with long skirts and big hats with veils. Or a nun. I could wear a habit. Or a burka.
When I saw that he had died and where the funeral was, I got my friend Todd to drive me out to Babylon. I have a terrible sense of direction, and never, ever if I can help it leave the city. But I had to go to Jack’s funeral. I had seen his wife before; a couple of years ago she came to a birthday party at his mother’s mansion. He invited me and of course, I went. Jack knew he could trust me. I clean up nice, too, don’t stand out the way I do when I am in my regular clothes. I wear long sleeves and long pants and take out the jewelry of the most outlandish piercings. My hair is almost white it is so blond, and it’s natural, too. My body hair is pure white, almost nonexistent. I have pale blue eyes. It set me apart all of my childhood. The best thing about having such pale skin is that tattoo artists love inking me. I have never paid for a tatt. Jack loved my tattoos. He often went with me to the Village studios; he liked watching them work on me. He had a fantasy that he was a tattoo artist. Once, we got fine tipped felt pens and I let him go to town drawing on my body! Ha! I had marker on parts of me that I couldn’t even see. It was very erotic.
At the funeral, I tried to make contact with his wife. I felt certain it would be something that Jack would have wanted. But no matter how hard I tried, she would not acknowledge me. She knew. That was why. She looked at me with a stare that burned through me. Her face was expressionless, but I felt her hatred of me. I was glad then that Jack wasn’t there to have experienced it. I found myself curious about their relationship. It couldn’t have been much because he was so busy with his sexual conquests. He claimed he loved his wife, choosing to stay with her and their children, to have a life that everyone who knew them envied. But I knew better. And I wasn’t the only one.
During the years we were lovers and friends, Jack had many women, too many for me to count. I lost track of who he was seeing as a self-preservation tactic; it was too painful to be aware of him sleeping with someone I knew, or seeing him on the street with another woman. Once, about two years ago, while I was lecturing on the history of language and its relation to culture, I saw him out my window talking to a woman. I totally lost my train of thought as I walked over to look out at him. My students followed me and soon we were all standing at the window, looking at Jack. Why was he even on campus? I thought.
“Who are we looking at?” One of my students asked.
“That man there, the one in the suit talking to the redhead,” I replied. “I wonder why he’s here?”
“Ah teach, that should be obvious!” Jack was taking the woman in his arms for a kiss. “What’s his name?” At that moment they knocked on the window trying to get his attention, yelling and laughing. It worked, because he looked up and saw us. He made eye contact with me; even from a distance I’m difficult to miss, and I waved at him.
That marked the end of our physical relationship, but we remained good friends, still seeing each other weekly or more often, and Jack still taking care of me financially. He had said that he never gave any other women money, not that it would matter to me. I didn’t ask for it. Jack was funny about people; he didn’t shy away from speaking his mind, but he also had a soft heart. I think because of my coloring, he felt sorry for me. I was different, but not grotesque, at least in his eyes. By giving me money, I was his own, personal charity and he didn’t have to get his hands dirty.
And then he started to see Sandra. He still called me two and three times a day, and came up at least once a week to take me grocery shopping or out to lunch. But the dinners and the shows and movies stopped. He explained right away; he thought he was in love. It was someone he had known for a while, someone from his office. To say that I wasn’t hurt would be a lie. I may have hoped down deep inside that he would return to me some day and that I would be the one who would change him, who could drive him to monogamy.
Sandra may have been the first woman he dated who he took his time getting to know first, before seducing her. They were friends for a long time before they dated. And he was normal with Sandra, if Jack was capable of normalcy. Jack thrived on kinky sex, almost masochistic. I didn’t see him having a long relationship without something depraved on the side. I mean, his marriage was the same thing. He may have been planning on replacing Pam with Sandra. I was glad I didn’t have to be in on that fiasco. Of course, his death ended the threat.
Life without Jack is boring. Men who are interested in me are generally creepy middle-aged pedophiles who like a woman to look like a ten-year old or a teenaged boy who thinks I am cool because I look like a ghost with tattoos all over its body. So I am alone and will probably be alone for a while. I’m still grieving. No one has ever cared about me the way he did. He completely accepted me for who I am and embraced all my strangeness. I wish I could be friends with his wife; there are things I know he felt for her that she should know. But I doubt if that will happen. Today I have to get the courage to make a doctor appointment. I am really frightened at what they will find.
Chapter 6
Sandra got a cab to go the four or so miles to meet with Dee from the health department. Her afternoon thoughts had been dominated by how her relationship with the wealthy, upper class Jack Smith had totally destroyed her life. She had hurt his wife who was a kind and generous woman, contracted a deadly disease, put her unborn baby’s life at risk, and was now going to suffer through the humiliation of a surveillance of her sexual escapades with a stranger from the public health sector. All she thought of during the ride was how glad she was that she had not slept with her only male contact since Jack; a cop by the name of Tom Adams. He had entered her life like a whirlwind and exited it just as quickly. She imagined having to call him to tell him that he would be getting a visit by the Department of Health and it made her physically ill.
The cab stopped on the corner of Twenty-Eight and Broadway and she got out there. The door to the interview room was unobtrusive. She went to it and knocked. It was opened right away by a woman who could look Sandra right in the eye. She rarely encountered another woman as tall as she was. Dee closed the door after Sandra passed th
rough and then offered her hand.
“Thank you for coming. I’m Dee Frank,” she said. “And you are?” You just couldn’t be too careful when dealing with people’s lives; she wanted to hear who this was from Sandra’s own mouth before they moved on. Sandra identified herself. Dee led her to a pair of chairs with a small round table between them. She had several papers spread out. “Have a seat,” she said. Sandra sat down and Dee sat opposite her.
“I received notification of your blood test results, Miss. Benson. You were named as a possible partner of Jack Smith. Could you verify that?”
“That’s correct.” Sandra would later add this to her list of things that she had Jack to thank for.
“Now here are the questions that I must apologize to you in advance for. Have you had unprotected sex, which includes anal, vaginal or oral with another partner? Unprotected means without the use of a condom or rubber dam.” Dee explained.
“No!” Sandra exclaimed, repulsed.
“Have you shared intravenous needles with anyone?”
“No.” Sandra thought a few moments about whether or not she should mention Cindy Thomasini’s name, when Dee asked her the final question.
“Do you know of any other partner Jack Smith may have had sex with, or shared intravenous injected drugs with?” Dee looked at her intently. Sandra was looking back at Dee with equal intent. Finally, she made up her mind. She couldn’t lie. If it made Jack look bad, he brought it on himself.
“Yes, I met another woman that he was having sex with just a few hours ago. That you would call me within minutes after having left her is unnerving. I keep trying to understand the purpose for all of this.” Sandra opened her purse and took out the sheet of paper that she had written the information about Cindy on and handed it over to Dee Frank. “She is thirty-one. She was in a relationship with Jack for three years.” Sandra had not yet had the time to think too deeply about what Cindy had told her. Jack was screwing her while he was sleeping with Sandra. Only a few times a week, Cindy had said! Oh my God. Dee thanked her for the information and they concluded the interview. Sandra left the office without saying goodbye. She was worried that if she opened her mouth, yodeling screams would emerge that nothing could stifle.
She couldn’t get a cab, which just pissed her off even more. She decided not to go back to the office; by the time she got downtown she would turn around and leave anyway. There was a subway entrance on Twenty-Eight street and she would get on the train there and get home. She just wanted to be home with the doors locked. Her apartment was on the Upper West Side. It was in a genteel neighborhood. She didn’t want to think about AIDS and mistresses and shared needles. Several times in the hot subway car, she felt faint. The man next to her smelled bad; body odor and cigarettes. If she had to barf, she would just face him and do it in his lap. Didn’t adults know that bathing was not optional? An image of her late parents shimmered in front of her face. Relax, you’ll be fine. She could hear her mother’s voice. You make me so proud! You are proof of my worthiness. Her mother used to tell her that over and over. Finally, Sandra gave in. She couldn’t control the tears. Thank God her parents had died. She couldn’t imagine having to tell them she was HIV positive, let alone unmarried and pregnant by a married man.
Fortunately no one on a subway train cared if she cried. She just let the tears come. When her stop came up, she got off the train and dried her tears as she walked up the stairs to Broadway. She’d had a stomach ache all day; probably because she was constipated. So many lovely manifestations of pregnancy that are never talked about and she had almost every one of them. She would stop in the grocery store and pick up something to eat for dinner and get an enema, too. Eating was so boring that she had to constantly remind herself to do it. At her last visit to the obstetrician, she was shocked to learn that she had lost four pounds that week. The doctor warned her to either reverse the trend or go into the hospital where they can monitor her nutrition.
She strolled up and down the aisles, looking for something that would grab her interest and nothing looked appetizing. Finally, in the bread aisle she saw pizza bread. The crust was shiny with olive oil and the fat from the pepperoni that had melted out when it was in the oven. She grabbed a loaf. A few more things looked promising and she was ready to check out. She placed her items on the counter along with her enema. The man behind her was looking at her strange selection of purchases.
“Glad you aren’t eating dinner at my house tonight?” she said to him. The walk home was only four blocks, but it felt like miles. The day had gotten away from her and she realized that she hadn’t heard from Pam. She wouldn’t say anything to her about Cindy Thomasini. It was irrelevant. She’d made the decision to stay in touch with Cindy, but Sandra would protect Pam from any more horrendous news about her husband. About Jack. She realized that hearing from Cindy about her affair with him was deserved after what she had done to Pam. Revenge is Mine, sayeth the Lord. She felt separated from God. But wasn’t that when faith played a major role? The tiniest faith was all it took. Faith the size of a tiny mustard seed. She needed that right now. Needed to believe that the baby would be safe, that she wouldn’t die young and leave the baby an orphan and that Pam would continue to be her friend.
Her front door loomed ahead and it seemed to take forever to get there. She didn’t notice the car in parked in front of her building where no parking was allowed, until the door opened and a tall, handsome police officer unfolded himself out. Her heart did a little summersault. Tom Adams.
“Don’t scream,” he said and walked up to her.
“Get lost,” Sandra said. “I have nothing to say to you.” She picked up her pace walking toward the front door.
“Just give me a minute, will you please?” Tom Adams had long legs but was having to skip along beside her to keep up. “I’m sorry!”
“Don’t you have some parking tickets to write?” She reached her door and struggled with the key, shaking him off when he attempted to help her unlock the door.
“If you’d wait a minute, I can get it for you,” he said.
“Go to hell!” She yelled. “Go back to Brooklyn, or wherever it is you live. You are the last person on earth that I want to hear anything from right now, do you understand me?”
Without another word, he took the bag of groceries from her and pulled her against his body with his free arm. She allowed the intrusion.
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Tom said.
“Believe it, jerk,” she said. And then she started crying.
“And I hate you!”
Tears came again, and she let them flow down her cheeks, wetting his shoulder. She gave him the key and he opened the door for her. When they got into the apartment, they didn’t speak as they put the groceries away. She forgot about the enema until it was too late. He picked it up and read the label out loud. They laughed out loud.
“It’s not that funny,” she said.
“Yes it is,” Tom replied.
He went to the stove and got the tea kettle to fill, while she got the new coffee pot out from under the counter; she hadn’t thought she would ever need it again. He went about preparing tea for her while she made coffee for him, neither saying a single word. When the tasks were completed, he followed her down the stairs to the back patio; they would sit in the shade of the surrounding buildings and drink their respective beverages. They still hadn’t spoken more than a few words beyond the bickering. He remembered the note he had left her the last time they were together, just a week or so before. In it, he told her he didn’t think he could handle her past and knew that it was ridiculous to expect her to pretend that it didn’t exist. So he was bowing out of her life. She remembered the way it affected her; what else could happen? She thought. Good riddance. But now that he was here, now that she felt him and could see him, she realized that if he did that to her a second time, it would leave a mark. She looked at him intently.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” was all she s
aid.
“I won’t. I promise. Forgive me?” He asked.
“Yes, I think I will. And not just because you are so damn cute. I need you, unfortunately. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the most desirable woman around right now.” She had nothing to lose by being self-deprecating. If he couldn’t tolerate it, the sooner he left again, the better. “You’re the only one who will put up with me.” He squeezed her hand.
“I love you, Sandra.” There, he said it. Once he said it, he couldn’t take it back. He was almost thirty years old and he had never said ‘I love you.’ He never felt love for a woman before. He was willing to face the wrath of his family, to lose their respect, even their love, for this woman. He would give everything up for her. He wouldn’t lie; before, he could only imagine a life with Sandra and her baby if he was able to claim the baby as his own. Now, he knew that he would raise another man’s baby with as much love as if he had provided the sperm himself. This was his wife. This woman was the one that his mother had been praying for since the day he was born. He remembered finding the handwritten notes in a box she had assembled for him, one box for each of her children. Among the notes was a short prayer that she said she had recited each morning and now did by heart. She dated it the month he was born.
While they sat outside, listening to the sounds of traffic dying down as rush hour came to an end, Tom thought about the prayer, and how hypocritical it was of him to think he could ask for anything when he wasn’t being honest with Sandra or himself. They had been together for such a short time, and felt so passionately about each other, yet they had already allowed several pink elephants into their lives. For one thing, Tom admitted that he was lying to himself and to her when he said that the baby’s parentage wasn’t important. He had said he didn’t care what everyone would think about he and Sandra, but he did care. He expected Sandra to end her relationship with Pam. He wasn’t jealous of a dead man, but he thought that every time the two women would be together, they would talk about him and the goal would be to keep him alive for the child’s sake. Sandra realized that her relationship with Pam might be a temporary thing. She felt it. Even though they needed each other now, it was part of the grieving process. At the beginning they were free to share stories about Jack with each other, things that no one else would know. The telling grew very one sided as the women discovered that only Pam had stories that were validated by her marriage to Jack. The ones Sandra wanted to share ended up being too painful for Pam to hear. They emphasized the emptiness of Pam’s marriage, and nothing more. And if they were going to live in a vacuum for the rest of their lives, make a shrine of their life to Jack that would be fine. But they weren’t going to do that. They were going to try to move on.
Dream Lover: Pam of Babylon Book #3 Page 5