by Curtis Bunn
“But you know how many events I don’t go to because I’m tired of showing up alone? The Forrest Johnson Christmas party. The Rod Edmunds holiday party. The Mayor’s Masked Ball. The Trumpet Awards. I have access to all those events and passed. I have met some good men. But the good men have many options and usually explore them. I have met some of the world’s biggest assholes, too; guys—I won’t even call them men—who are so dishonest that it’s sickening.”
Rhonda thought for a second.
“I wonder if anyone is really happy,” she said. “Most of the married women I know complain about their life. And the married men I know say they aren’t happy, either. When you think about it, it’s sad.”
“There are some people who are happy.”
“Who?”
“Single men.”
Olivia laughed, and Rhonda mustered a chuckle, too. But she was concerned. She thought about her mother’s comments. “You know what I’m going to do?”
“What?”
“Not worry about men. I’m going to live my life and see what that brings me. I haven’t been single in a long time. So I’m going to enjoy it. It’s not like I’m some old maid. I got a little looks and a little body and a lot of sense. My mother told me I was crazy to get a divorce. But she doesn’t know what it’s like to be married to a man that you have lost attraction for. It’s awful. I began to resent him. And, when I really think about it, this is the best thing because I’ve known Eric for almost twenty years and I don’t want to lose respect for him. That’s what it was heading toward.”
“Wow. You’re saying you’d rather be alone than with someone you don’t care for?”
“I care for Eric. I do and always will. But we literally have different ideas about how we should live. I want to do things, take advantage of all the concerts and events that come to Atlanta. I want to travel. I want to party. He wants to play cards in the basement with his fat friends and their lame wives. I know that sounds mean, but I was so tired of it.
“You know that I won the raffle for two tickets in the office to see Kobe Bryant play in Atlanta for the last time, and this man who loves sports didn’t want to go? Said, ‘Too much drama getting in and out of the arena. It’s more comfortable to sit here and watch it on TV.’ ”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said, ‘It’s not about comfort. It’s about the experience.’ I was pissed. So I gave the tickets to the young guy in the office from L.A. He was thrilled. I should have gone by myself. But that was almost the last straw. So, yeah, I’d rather be alone and lonely than with someone who makes me miserable. I would be stuck at home and truly become an old married maid messing around with Eric.”
“Was he always like that?”
“No. I wouldn’t have married him if he were. He liked to go to Chastain Park for concerts and Falcons games. It’s like he hit a midlife crisis and shut down. And whatever was going on with him, he tried to eat his way out of it. You see how big he is? He’s not the fit, muscular man I married. And that was important to me. I know myself. I need eye candy. Call me vain if you like. But that’s reality. Instead of eye candy, he looks like the whole candy store.”
The women laughed. When they settled down, Rhonda tried to cover her tracks.
“Listen, you’re the only person I’ve told this to, other than my mother.”
“You don’t even have to say it. I won’t say a word to anyone.”
They rose from their seats and hugged.
“It’s going to be all right, trust me,” Olivia said. “I have experience in helping girls get back on the horse after divorce. You’re the seventh friend, I believe, in the last eight or ten years going through this.”
“And how are they?”
“Fine. Still single, but fine.”
“I’m nervous; I’m not gonna lie. But I hope Eric and I can remain friends when all is said and done.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It could happen, but only after some time. It’s too fresh now, especially since he had the reason to leave. You know men; they hold shit against us like crazy. Their egos can’t take certain things, and cheating is number one.”
Olivia received a text message and said she had to leave. “Here is a single woman lesson right here,” she said. “This guy texted me, asking for a date. So, I know he has no future with me. He has no manners, no chivalry. We haven’t gone out yet, and yet he’s texting me about going to dinner? And at this late hour? I have to set him straight. So get ready for a lot of that. Always command respect. Lesson number one.”
Olivia left and Rhonda felt alone. The house was silent. She had become conditioned to Eric’s snoring or wheezing or the TV constantly playing or him playing video games. And she thought: Damn, I miss my husband.
It was a fleeting feeling, though. The reality was she missed what she was familiar with, not Eric. But she was concerned about his feelings. So, she called him.
To her astonishment, he answered.
“Hi. How are you? I’m calling to say hello.”
“To say hello? That’s it?”
“Yeah. . . Can you hear me? There’s a lot of noise in the background.”
“Yeah, I’m at the comedy club about to see Paul Mooney.”
Rhonda literally pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it.
“You’re at the comedy club?”
“Yeah.”
“I couldn’t get you to go anywhere, and a day after leaving the house you’re out at a comedy club?”
“I don’t have to answer to you anymore, Rhonda. I can do what I want.”
“You always could do what you wanted. You always did. But you didn’t want to do anything I suggested.”
“Well, things change. Just like things changed when you started fucking buddy.”
Rhonda did not have a retort. Tired of the silence, Eric said: “Gotta go. Will be by over the next few weeks to pick up the rest of my stuff. We can talk then about how this is going to go down.”
All she could say was, “Okay.”
She suddenly felt jealous and silly. Eric was out having fun, seeing her favorite comedian, and she was in an empty home pondering her life. She did as she always had when he made her upset: She reached out to a man. She frequently kept open opportunities with other men of her past by staying in touch, mostly whenever she felt stifled in her marriage. In this case, she texted Lorenzo.
You still up?
She waited several minutes, but got no reply. That was strange. He always responded to her texts in a timely fashion. But it was close to midnight, so she chalked it up to the late hour.
After a shower, she stood at the bathroom doorway, looking at her empty bed. By this time, on a normal night, Eric would be either snoring or lying on his back wheezing, with the remote control resting on his ample belly. Those sights did not bother her at first, but they grew to make her cringe. She smiled to herself at the quiet.
But Rhonda hardly was at peace. She was lonely. And for the first time in fifteen years, she was unsure of herself and her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MANO Y MANO
STEPHANIE
Who the fuck is Charles, Steph?”
“Lower your voice.”
“Answer the question.”
“Let’s go downstairs. People are trying to sleep up here.”
When they got onto the elevator, Stephanie said, “Charles is a principal in the Los Angeles area that I met a few months ago.”
“Why are you talking about him to your sister?”
“Because I’m talking to her about everything. I’m trying to connect with her.”
“But I heard what you said.”
Before she could respond, the elevator doors opened. In the distance was Charles.
Stephanie’s heart dropped. She intuitively knew it was him, but her eyes couldn’t stay focused. The closer they got, the more into focus he came, and the more fear co
vered her body.
“Hi. I left my jacket. It has my wallet in it,” he said, retrieving his blazer.
He turned to Willie, unaware of who he was, and extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Charles, a—”
“Charles? You’re Charles?”
Charles looked at Stephanie, who looked at the floor.
“Charles, I’m Willie, Stephanie’s husband. Why are you here in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, well, I, uh, I came by earlier to support your wife. I’m in town for a conference.”
“The conference ain’t here, man,” Willie said.
“Yeah, I know. Like I said, when I called, she told me what had happened with her sister and that she was scared and alone, so decided to come by.”
“You have on a wedding ring—you have your own wife, don’t you?”
“I do. Eighteen years.”
“Well, comfort you own fucking wife. Leave mine alone.”
“Willie,” Stephanie said, with fear in her voice. She knew her husband was a proud man and was not above engaging in a fight, even at forty-six years old.
“It’s okay,” Charles said. “I understand. I would feel the same way. No disrespect intended, Willie. I was only trying to be a friend. I went through cancer a while back and my wife was there for me the entire time. But no one was there for her. So I know what it’s like not to have someone there for support.”
“As you can see, I’m here. And let’s step over here for a minute.”
“That’s not necessary, Willie,” Stephanie pleaded.
“Yeah, it is,” Willie said. “Stay here.”
The men walked about twenty feet away. “Aye, man, listen,” Willie began, “if you came over here with a pure heart to support my wife, thank you. I appreciate it. But I’m a man and I’m not a fool. If you aren’t fucking her, you’re trying to—and I ain’t cool with either one of them. So you best get a good look at her now because you won’t be seeing her again. I don’t give a fuck if you end up in the same elevator, you get off. ’Cause if I find out you didn’t, I’m gonna come looking for you. And I won’t be this calm; I promise you that.”
Charles contemplated saying, “Okay” and leaving, but his pride wouldn’t let him. “It’s like this, Willie. You don’t control anything I do, where I go or who I see. Period. You have, from what I can tell, a nice wife. Be glad with that. But don’t think you can talk shit to me as if I’m a child quaking in my boots. ’Cause I’m not. And I wear big boots. So if you come looking for me, as you say you will, I hope you find me. And please believe I won’t be this calm, either.”
The men stared each other down. It looked as if they were going to start throwing, and Stephanie hurried between them.
“Charles, please go. Thank you for coming earlier.”
Charles diverted his eyes from Willie’s and into Stephanie’s. “I wish your sister the best, Stephanie.”
He picked up his jacket, glared at Willie, turned and walked away.
Stephanie’s shoulders dropped. She was relieved. . . for a minute.
“If you’re not fucking him, you should have been because that’s what I believe,” Willie said. “And that’s a real problem.”
“Willie, how can you think that?”
“No man who isn’t fucking a woman or trying to would come to a hospital to support someone he met a month ago. In the middle of the night. Period. So either he’s the nicest guy in the world—which he is not—or you’re fucking him.”
“I’m not even going to dignify that.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re not.”
She believed the best defense was a good offense, so she went on the attack.
“Look, I’ll be honest with you,” she said. “You have some nerve being upset with someone—a man—being nice to me. You are the one who cheated and put our relationship, our marriage, on the line. But I guess cheaters believe everyone is capable of doing the same thing.”
“So you’re going to throw that in my face. That was seven years ago. We went to counseling and the one thing we took from it was that it wasn’t going to be used against me.”
“Well, that’s bullshit, Willie. You weren’t the one who was betrayed. You think I’m supposed to ever forget it? No.”
“I’m saying we got way beyond that. And that has nothing to do with what happened. And I answered for a year straight about that situation. I’m not going to get back into it, seven years later.”
“We may be way beyond what happened, in terms of time, but it still hurts.”
Stephanie was being honest. She had stayed in the marriage because she loved her husband and family. But the anguish she’d suffered when she learned Willie had been sleeping with an old girlfriend had devastated her. And so, part of her wanted Willie to know that she had cheated, too. She thought to herself: Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they sure make it even, and that’s all right with me.
She was not sure if she would reveal that she had crossed the line with Charles. But she felt like she had regained some power in her marriage by Willie believing that she could or would cheat. At the same time, she was turned on by how jealous he was.
Their marriage had rebounded after Willie’s infidelity but made a downward turn when he became so engrossed in work that his attention to Stephanie dwindled. It was especially noticeable after their daughter went away to college. When she was home, especially her last year of high school, they’d spent a lot of time together as a family. When she’d left to go to San Diego State coincided with Willie’s business blossoming, his commitment to it grew.
He paid the mortgage and the utility bills and the car insurance, so he believed he was compensating for not being there. But that did not work for Stephanie, who coveted attention. She passively had complained, but Willie always countered with a persuasive argument: “This business is my dream come true. I have to be at the business to make the business work, Steph. You have to understand that.”
She did not want to squash his dream; indeed, she wanted to support it, so she’d acquiesced. Over time, though, her desire to have a man’s attention grew to a fantasy that she told herself would come true at some point. Charles came along at the right time, saying the right things, and Stephanie felt powerless against what she considered a prophecy she had put into the universe. She rationalized that “it was meant to be” because she had told herself it would happen.
Willie sat in a separate chair, staring off into the distance, and Stephanie was surprised at her emotions. She felt invigorated. She knew then that his cheating all those years ago really wore on her, even as she put on a contented face. But she was filled with anxiety when he worked late or went to the office on the weekends. Because he had cheated before, she knew he was capable of doing it again.
In reality, it had been stressful for her ever since she had learned of his cheating. She was often on edge about where he was, what he was doing and with whom. Because she wanted her family so badly, she had suppressed the constant anxiety and replaced it with relief when he finally called or came home.
Her pure side, the side that loved Willie, overtook her. She did not want him to live with the anxiety she had. She had gotten even with him after so long, and that was enough for her. He didn’t have to know.
But since she knew, the anxiety that dominated for seven years washed away. The payback evened things. So, she went over to her husband and sat in his lap.
“I’m sorry, Willie. I made Charles feel comfortable enough to come here. I knew he was interested in me—or at least I thought he might be. I’m sorry. You’re my husband and at this time especially, the family needs to be strong and together.”
Willie nodded his head. It was not the “I’m-not-fucking-this-guy” declaration he desired, but he got enough to feel better about the situation.
“We’ve got some work to do once Toya gets better,” he said. “I don’t want you unhappy. And I don’t want you seeking the attention of other men.”
Those words pene
trated Stephanie’s heart. Willie sounded like the Willie she had fallen for almost two decades before. And so she leaned in and kissed him.
He kissed her back and she got comfortable in her husband’s lap and they fell asleep together in the hospital waiting room. It was their most romantic night in some time.
Their sleep was disturbed by the sunlight—and people milling about the area. She looked at her watch; it was six thirty.
“Why did you say to Toya that you would leave Charles alone? I heard you.”
Stephanie was perplexed. “I thought we moved on from that. I told you I encouraged him. I was telling Toya that I was going to stop encouraging him.”
“I ain’t too proud to tell you that I’m disappointed, hurt. You basically pursued this guy. No wonder he came up here last night. He’s trying to close the deal.”
“This should not be what we discuss the first thing in the morning. Can I brush my teeth and wash my face first? Damn.”
“You think you can tell me that, basically, you were flirting with someone and I should let it go.”
“I let go of what you did.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But after seven years, you brought it up.”
“Oh, my God. I told you, Willie: I’m not a magician. I didn’t hypnotize myself and forget what you did. So excuse me if I’m human.”
“But you haven’t brought it up in years. Now that I’m questioning you about your shit, you decide you’ve been traumatized by it for years and bring it back up. Pretty convenient. I’m just saying.”
“You can say whatever you want. You don’t know what it’s like to have your trust broken like that. You don’t.”
“Actually, I do.”
“How?”
“Who is Charles?”
Stephanie felt anxious.
“Who?”
“You heard me.”
“I already told you.”
“Sacramento teacher’s conference. You met at the table. You’ve been texting and keeping in touch ever since.”