In their talks she’d sometimes face him with her back against her door and her legs up on the bench seat of the car. At twenty-one, David was already a giant of a man and seemed to dwarf the front area of the car. Tilting the steering wheel up, he could just barely manipulate his big strong body around enough to face her. So, he’d cramp himself against his door and stroke her legs while she told him about her new job at the box company or her childhood and how her parents were the best parents that she could ever have hoped for. They were always there, had always supported her. The night he told her about his childhood she came over and snuggled into his side. His muscular arms held her, loosely at first, but as his story progressed she squeezed onto him tighter and eventually, he squeezed back.
“It mattered at the time. I mean I was eight, everything matters when you’re eight, but now it doesn’t matter so much.” David paused as though trying to remember exactly what it felt like, before continuing. “My dad died in a car accident. The other car swerved out of control and hit my dad’s car. The police said the impact probably killed him immediately. That’s what they said to us, to my mother and me. I remember when they came to tell us. The officer looked so sad. My dad was a cop, too.
“Maybe the officer knew him, I don’t know. He kept touching the top of my head and resting his hand on my shoulders. And my mother wouldn’t talk to him. She just kept staring out the window. It was like she thought my dad would walk in any minute and that the officer was wrong. It was bad; all of it, but the policeman didn’t know how bad it really was, or how bad it was going to get. You see, I was my dad and he was me. We were so alike, even when I was eight, everybody said so. We looked the same.” David breathed out a short laugh as he said it, and Elizabeth smiled a little smile in the darkness.
“Yeah, I know, he was much older and I was eight, but I was a miniature version of him. That’s what I meant. We walked the same way, touched our faces when we spoke the same way, we even ate our meals the same way, slowly, enjoying every mouthful. So, when he was gone it was like my mother didn’t want the memory of him around and every time she looked at me she must have seen it. She must have seen him and remembered that he was gone. It was only me left.”
“We didn’t really have any other family, nobody that was close anyways. So she started leaving me with neighbors and friends and she went out on dates. She found a man that she liked and spent time with him, lots of time. I met him once, but he wasn’t interested in me. I never really knew why until the day the picture was gone. I came home from school and the picture of my dad and me that had sat above the fireplace was gone. I noticed it right away. I always looked at it when I came into the house and when it was missing I went and found my mother right away. She was in my room and there were boxes all around, half-filled with my things.”
Elizabeth pressed tighter to David. His voice was calm as he was telling her his story, but the pain was still there. It was in the short gaps as he spoke. It was in the way that he sat in the seat of the car, his body heavy with long-ago grief. She didn’t dare speak. He didn’t tell this story to anyone. When they were out with friends and the subject came up, he’d said that his parents weren’t around and left it at that. Now, he was telling her the truth and it was important to him. She could tell.
“I didn’t understand at first. I thought it was a good thing. She was marrying Mark, her new man. They were going to live together and his son from a previous marriage would visit them on weekends. She was going to start a new life, a new life with Mark. I thought that perhaps she was clearing out some of my things to make room for Mark’s son when he visited. I was fine with that. It didn’t matter. But she wouldn’t look at me. She just kept packing my things while I sat on the edge of the bed. When all my things were in the boxes, she looked at me for a moment and told me. She told me that I was too much like my father. I looked and acted too much like him. Mark didn’t want the memory in his life in his house. I suppose in hindsight, neither did she. She was doing what she needed to do to survive. She deserved a life. She deserved to be happy.”
David sat a little more upright in the seat, letting Elizabeth hold him and gradually, he returned her embrace. She waited a moment to make sure that he’d finished speaking before asking. “What happened, David? What happened to you after that?”
The windows had fogged up in the car and David breathed some of the muggy air into his lungs before continuing. “She put me up for adoption. I was probably the oldest child ever to be offered for adoption. I was eight. I was just eight.” Elizabeth looked up at him and could see no expression on his face. Staring forward, tears filled her eyes, while he continued. “I was too old, of course. Families want babies, small babies that they can call their own. I was placed in care. That’s what they call it. I lived with lots of different foster families over the years, seventeen in total. I ran away from some of them, but they always found me and took me back to the social workers. After a while I stopped running. I never did know what I was running away to anyways.”
The quietness of the night surrounded them and she waited until it felt as though she was going to suffocate before asking, “Your mother, what happened to her? Did you see her again, David?”
David paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “The night she packed my things a woman came to collect me. She was the first social worker that I met. While she was there my mother became more distraught and kept telling her that she wasn’t capable of looking after me. She never mentioned Mark to the woman and neither did I. I never spoke about him, not until now. And, no, I never saw my mother again. She never came to see me and I’ve never tried to find her.”
He sat as though suspended for a moment or two, letting the gravity of what he’d just had to relive sink in. Elizabeth held onto him as tight as she could and stroked his back, his arms. When she touched his face she felt his tears for the first time and that’s when he relaxed his body and let it fall into hers. That was the first night they said the word “love”. She told him first that she loved him and he replied that he did, too, but he didn’t have to. She knew that already. She knew it by the way he told his story. It was the way that he shared it with her, and only her.
Months later, when he asked her to marry him, there was only one place to do it. He did it in full view of the cross, their cross. She’d been lying with her head on his shoulder, enjoying the sound of the rain pelting down on his car. He’d been acting differently for a few days, perhaps even weeks. She’d attributed it to the letter he was waiting for, the letter that would take him away to Regina, Saskatchewan for six months, the letter that still hadn’t come.
When he spoke his voice was hoarse at first and he cleared his throat in an almost official-like manner. “I wonder if you could do me a favor, Lizzy. I wonder if you could get me a piece of gum out of the glove compartment.”
They’d kissed that night, just to feel each other’s closeness. Then she’d settled into her familiar place in his arms while they looked out the front window, with the rain pelting down on the roof. She almost asked him why he needed gum and that his breath had tasted fine, but she didn’t. She just pushed the button that opened the glove compartment and as the little light came on inside it, she noticed that it was almost empty. There were no maps, no driving registration, just a small velvet box lit up by the bulb.
She sat up straight, pulling away from his arm that had been draped around her. She knew what it was, and what it meant, immediately. She knew what it meant that night, as they sat with the view of their cross and she knew what it would mean forever more. She held onto her knees and hunched her shoulders together. She didn’t smile. She just kept looking at the way the little bulb lit up the box and thinking about the rest of her life.
Trying to relieve her, David spoke. His voice was soft and calm and his initial nervousness was gone. It was difficult for Elizabeth to hear him in between the drumming of the rain. “Are you cold, honey? Do you want the blanket?”
“No,�
�� she answered quickly.
“No?” he asked her back with a slight quiver in his voice.
“No, I’m not cold. That’s all. I’m not cold.”
She thought about yesses and noes and the implications of each word. But in the end there was only one answer. In subtle ways over the past months they’d already planned their life together as they learned each other’s likes and dislikes, loves and hates. She felt comfortable with him, secure. This was a man who never had a family and was envious of hers. This was the man she wanted to be with and as she raised her eyes from the box, which she still hadn’t touched, she looked out the window at their cross and answered him. “Yes, David, yes.”
He started to reach into the back seat of the car for the blanket, but when she turned to face him with tears shining in her eyes, he knew what her answer meant.
“Don’t you want to open the box first, Lizzy? Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”
“I don’t need to, David.” As she spoke, she sealed the rest of her life with an embrace that pushed him back into the seat of the car. He held onto her and let her weep, her soft face nuzzled into his neck. She knew he was crying, too, from the way his arms clung to her. It was as though they’d drown if one of them let go. So they held onto each other for a long, long time.
His voice was wet with tears and emotion when he finally spoke. He released his grip on her slightly. “I’m doing my thing, Lizzy. I’m doing my thing, right now.”
She laughed and with the familiarity of a woman who’s in love with the right man, she said, “Tell me, David. Tell me about your thing again.” Then, hesitating, she pulled herself slightly away from his embrace so that she could look into his eyes. “Tell me the whole thing this time, honey. Tell me it like you’ve never told me before.”
He held her gently by the shoulders and kept his deep brown eyes fixed on her as he answered. “I used to do this thing when I was a little boy. I’d wish that I was anywhere other than where I was. I’d ask myself where do I want to be, where do I want to go.”
She smiled back at his warm wide smile, and asked the question that she’d asked so many times before. “And where do you wish you were tonight, David? Is there anywhere you’d rather be?”
She giggled in anticipation and he let her wait for just a moment longer than he usually did before answering. She was just about to give him a mock slap on his shoulder when he stroked the side of her face and spoke. “When I got left, sent away, I was angry for a long time and there was always somewhere else that I wanted to be, anywhere, anywhere other than where I was. But, not now, right now there’s nowhere else I want to be, nowhere at all. I’m right where I’m supposed to be, with the girl that I’m supposed to be with.”
As he drove her home later that night she opened the little box and placed the simple engagement ring on her finger. It had three little stones on it and he told her that the middle one was a diamond. It was the most beautiful ring that she’d ever seen in her life and it fit perfectly.
“Um, how did you know my size, David? This is a perfect fit.” She held her hand out in front of her, admiring the shininess of the little stones.
“I spoke to your dad. I asked him for permission and, of course, he told your mom and she helped me with your size. I think she may have measured your finger while you were sleeping.”
Thinking about it for a moment, and knowing her mother, she agreed and they laughed at the image of her mother holding a piece of string around her finger while trying not to wake her.
David’s letter came two weeks later. He had been accepted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His training in Regina, Saskatchewan would begin in three weeks and he’d be away for six months. David was going to be a policeman, just like his dad was. And Elizabeth would be married to a police officer. Wedding arrangements were hurriedly made and the ceremony took place in her parent’s backyard two days before he left. It was attended by her family and friends. On David’s side he had a few of his high school friends, but no family. His mother, of course, did not attend.
Chapter Four
Jim Gretzky slipped the box of condoms into his front pocket and nodded at the young man behind the counter. Turning on his heels, he leisurely made his way out to the parking lot. Sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, he gently pulled the flap of the box open. Taking a pen from the console, and utilizing his perfect penmanship skills, he wrote a capital “E” inside the flap and tucked the lid of the box back in. Confident that it looked like an unopened box, he reached under his car seat and tucked it amongst the springs. Gently, he bounced up and down a couple of times then reached underneath the seat once again to see if the box had become dislodged. Feeling that it was still stuck in place he smiled. It was a good hiding place. Even if his wife, Amanda, were using his car she’d never reach under the seat. She wouldn’t find it. She never had.
Jim got out of his car and pushed the button that opened the trunk. Looking around at the parking lot to make sure he was unobserved, he lifted the trunk lid and slid his fingers below the area where the jack clamped onto the spare tire. In the small space, he pulled out a rumpled box of condoms. The flap on this package had been opened before, several times before. Grinning to himself, he touched the remaining four little envelopes that were still in the box and counted them. Before closing the flap back up, he looked at the letter that he’d written on this box. In his writing, there was the letter “L”. “Four left,” he muttered to himself, “just four. Hmmm, almost time to move on.”
Closing the lid, he looked around the parking lot once more then opened the back door of his car. With very little effort he flipped the speaker cover off of the door and pulled out yet another previously opened condom box. Opening the flap he counted six remaining little envelopes. On the inside flap of this box there was the letter “N”. Replacing it in its hiding place, he pushed the speaker cover back over the hole where a speaker was once mounted and jumped into the front seat. He sat for a moment once he’d started the engine, thinking about his constant juggling act. Currently, he had three different women on the go, two of them he’d already been with, and one almost. And then, of course, there was Amanda, his wife.
From Jim’s vantage point in front of the drug store, he could see the young man who had served him trying to hang a large red and white Canadian flag on the inside glass of the store window. A young woman dressed in a smock was helping him. Oblivious to Jim, the young woman giggled as the boy held it higher then lower before finally taping it into place. “Just flirting,” Jim muttered to himself. Then as the girl walked away, Jim could see the boy watching her rear end, as she suggestively walked back to the counter. “Well, maybe not. Atta boy,” said Jim in a slightly louder voice, “you go get her. You go get her or maybe I will.”
Finding his statement funny, he laughed to himself as he backed the car out of the parking space. He was onto the street and into traffic before realizing the significance of the flag. “Canada Day, that’s right. It’s Canada Day next Monday. It’s a long weekend.” Laughing a little louder now, he tapped the side of his hand on the steering wheel as he drove along the road. “Perfect, perfect. Canada Day, it couldn’t come at a better time.”
As he drove to his office he only had one thing on his mind, a certain busty accountant who had been driving him crazy for the past two years. It was her turn. Yes, it was definitely her turn. He’d allowed the chase to go on long enough. It was time to move to the next phase with her. It was disappointing in a way, he thought to himself. Sometimes the chase was far better than the catch. He loved the anticipation, wondering what a woman was going to taste like, what her skin was going to feel like when he finally touched it or what her eyes were going to do when he slipped inside her. He tried to count the women that he’d slept with since he’d married Amanda. After a while he lost track. There were some that he’d had sex with and other less satisfying encounters where he’d just fooled around with them, just a few kisses and gropes before thei
r husbands came home, nothing serious. When he married Amanda, he did it because he loved her, and when he was with her his pain subsided a little bit. They bought a house together and immediately it felt like a home. Amanda was a great partner, but it wasn’t enough. No one would ever be enough for him.
His first wife, Jennifer, had left. They’d been together six years and something happened. A switch flipped in her head and one day she decided that she wanted out. He begged her to stay, but she’d made up her mind. She wanted to move on. Jim couldn’t let go. He followed her for weeks. Then he started parking outside her new apartment, watching her. At first she took his phone calls and tolerated his stalking, but soon she couldn’t take it anymore and ignored him altogether.
One night, several weeks after she left, he tried her number expecting to hear the usual recording of her voice mail. To his surprise, she answered the phone, after the first ring. “Yes, Jim. What do you want?”
Startled by the sound of the voice that he’d only heard on a recording these past few weeks, he hesitated then sputtered as he answered her. “Honey, I just want to talk. Can we talk, please? I need to talk to you. I miss you so much.”
Jim was desperate. All he wanted was to have her back. Jennifer paused then responded. Jim loved the familiar sound of her voice as the words hung in his ear. It wasn’t the warm voice that he was used to, but it was still her voice. It was his wife’s voice.
Undressing Elizabeth Page 3