Distant Lover

by Gloria Mallette

  When she awakened that morning, she was determined to continue walking the path she chose. She decided she would give herself six months to explore her feelings about Brent. If, at the end of that time, she felt there might be a future with him, she would file for divorce from Jared. That she would do, whether Brent was in her life or not.

  Not bothering to ring the bell, Tandi let herself in using her own key. If Jared was there and tried to pressure her into talking, she would leave. In the front hall, she stood and listened for sounds of where in the house Jared might be. She heard not a peep. In the living room the drapes were drawn against the daylight, rendering the house eerily dim and still, so still that Tandi could hear the soft whispered humming of the transformer for the doorbell, which sat hidden atop the protruding decorative molding above the door. Turning on the light in the living room, she left the drapes drawn as Jared had.

  “Jared.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Jared!” she called louder.

  Again, he didn’t answer.

  Maybe he wasn’t home after all. He could have driven his sedan to work, though it was unusual for him to leave his SUV parked outside the garage.

  Tandi checked the unopened mail on the hall table. There was a postcard from Daina addressed to her and Jared. “I love it here, but it’s not home. Missing you all. Love, Daina.” I miss you, too. She really did miss Daina and couldn’t wait for her to come home. Shuffling through the rest of the mail, Tandi saw none addressed to her specifically. Michael Jared had been bringing her mail to her every night. As to be expected, Jared hadn’t opened any of his mail. He rarely did without her pushing him. The mortgage and the utility bills were all due but that wasn’t her concern anymore. She started to walk away, but then, thinking better of it, grabbed up the bills. If she didn’t take them and pay them, Jared would fall behind and ruin both their credits. She stuffed the envelopes down into her pocketbook and from it took a pen and pad on which to make a list of everything she was taking. No better place to start than the upstairs bedrooms.

  At Michael Jared’s bedroom doorway Tandi surveyed the room. She would leave his room intact as he would be staying over often enough for it to remain so. His computer she would take, along with most of his clothes. Moving on down the hall, Tandi was surprised to see that her—no, Jared’s—bedroom door was closed. Usually, once they were up for the day, the door was always left open, but she was the one who used to leave it that way.

  Tandi opened the door wide. This room, too, was dim. Slivers of daylight peeked around the sides of the blinds and through the slightly opened slats. There was just enough light to see that the rumpled covers were piled high on her side of the bed. Usually, she was the hoarder, but she wasn’t in bed. Jared was. He was asleep, lying on his back, his naked body exposed down to below his belly button. Tandi was really surprised. Jared never slept late during the week and he certainly never missed a day of work. Concerned, she went to stand over him. Jared was breathing, so he wasn’t dead. She took the time to look him over. She used to love running her hands all over his body, feeling him, exciting herself and him. Having naughty thoughts, she lifted the sheet and peeked at his penis. No doubt, he was blessed. Not surprising, Tandi’s desire for Jared was not dead, and the urge to touch him was tempting. Lowering the sheet, she stared at his face. He looked peaceful; his lips looked kissable. No, her desire for him was not dead. Bending down to him, she kissed him long and tender until he started to respond, opening his mouth to let her tongue in, sending a foul, nauseating odor of rancid alcohol up into her nostrils.

  “Oh!” Tandi pulled back. “Jared!” She poked him in the shoulder. “Jared, wake up. Have you been drinking?”

  Groaning, Jared slowly opened his eyes into slits. He grimaced as he tasted his own tongue.

  “You smell awful. You’ve been drinking!”

  Jared’s eyes stretched wide. “The rush of a splitting headache assaulted him as a wave of queasiness swept over him. He tried to sit up, but his right arm wouldn’t move—it was pinned down. Falling back, Jared felt like he was about to heave and have a heart attack at the same time.

  “Jared, what’s wrong with—” Tandi’s eyes were suddenly drawn to the moving covers on the other side of the bed. Her eyes widening, her mouth opening, she stepped back from the bed to the door. She switched on the overhead light.

  Seeing the startled look on Tandi’s face, Jared stared at the covers moving next to him. He could feel warm flesh moving up against his side. “Oh shit,” he said, yanking his arm from under Evonne’s head. He leaped off the bed, pulling the covers off Evonne’s face and naked body. That’s when it hit him, he was naked, too.

  “Oh shit!” Jared quickly snatched up his briefs from the floor alongside the bed, yanking them on.

  Tandi dropped the pen and pad. She felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice cold water over her head. She froze.

  “It’s not what you think,” Jared said. The pain in his head was screaming at him.

  “Tandi,” Evonne said, sitting up, leaving her nakedness uncovered, “I can explain.”

  In total disbelief, Tandi began backing toward the door.

  Jared reached out for her. “It’s not what you think.”

  Tandi slapped frantically at Jared to keep him from touching her. “What I think is that you and my ex-best friend are the scum of the earth.” Disgusted, she ran from the room.

  Jared ran behind her. “Tandi!”

  Running hard, Tandi rushed headlong down the stairs.

  At the front door, Jared caught up with Tandi and grabbed hold of her arm. He spun her around. “Please, listen to me! I was drunk. I thought I was making love to you.”

  “Liar!” She clawed wildly, digging her nails into his arms, trying to make him let go of her. “I hate you!”

  “Tandi, I was hurting so bad, I didn’t know what to do. I . . .”

  “I don’t care!”

  “. . . I tried to drink my pain away. You know I don’t drink.”

  “I don’t care what you were trying to do. Get your filthy hands off me! I hate you!”

  “Tandi, please. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “I don’t care! Let go of me!” She took hold of Jared’s middle finger and brutally pulled it back until he let go of her.

  Jared ignored the pain in his finger. “Tandi, listen to me. Please, listen to me.”

  She snatched her pocketbook off the table and seeing the mail, grabbed it out of her bag and threw it on the floor.

  “Tandi, Evonne told me you were seeing another man!”

  She whirled around and looked him dead in his bloodshot eyes. “That’s a goddamn lie!”

  “She said you were seeing him for six months, and that’s why you wanted a divorce.”

  “You’re stupid, Jared. You believed vicious lies out of the mouth of a snake.”

  “But she said—”

  “Tandi!” Evonne called from midway up the stairs.

  Jared and Tandi both looked up at Evonne.

  “Evonne, didn’t you tell me Tandi was seeing someone?”

  Tandi glared up at Evonne, wearing Jared’s dark blue Mechanic on Duty T-shirt, which just covered her pubic patch. Tandi’s stomach churned, gnawing at her, making her ill. “My, Evonne, I think you’re showing a bit more than I need to see.”

  Evonne tugged on the edge of the T-shirt. “Jared and I were drunk. We made a mistake. Let’s sit down and talk about—”

  “I trusted you, Evonne. I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am.”

  “Didn’t you tell me Tandi was seeing another man?” Jared asked.

  “That’s not what I said, Jared. You must’ve heard—”

  “That’s a damn lie!” Jared started for the stairs. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Tandi opened the front door.

  Jared rushed back to her. “Tandi, she’s lying. I got drunk and—”

  Slap!

  Tandi’s ope
n-handed slap caught Jared across the mouth, stinging his lips. Yet, the pain in his head was far worse than the sting of the slap. He grabbed his head with both hands. “Oh, God,” he moaned.

  “You’re both dogs!” Tandi ran from the ugliness of their betrayal.

  23

  Holding on to his throbbing head, Jared stood in front of the open door, unable to move. If it wasn’t for the cold, sobering breeze splashing in his face and all over his naked torso, chilling him, confirming that he was wide awake, he’d swear he was in the throes of a crazy nightmare that he just could not wake up from. Awake or asleep, he could not believe what he had done.

  “Jared, close the door,” Evonne said, walking felinelike down the stairs.

  Jared dropped his arms to his sides and continued to look blindly out into the street. Nothing made sense. What hell had he gotten himself caught up in?

  Evonne rushed to the door and closed it. Laying her hand on Jared’s chest, she stood before him, looking up into his pain-etched face. “Jared, it’s not like we did this on purpose.”

  Jared knocked Evonne’s hand away.

  “Jared, please don’t be upset with me.”

  He backed away from Evonne. In the living room, he flopped down into the very same armchair he had sat in the night before while he listened to hurtful, vicious lies from Evonne’s mouth that drove him to drink. He couldn’t believe he had been that gullible. Closing his eyes, he pressed the pulsating veins in his temples with his fingertips, trying to stop them from throbbing.

  Evonne eased as close to Jared as she dared. “Jared, what happened between us couldn’t be helped. It’s not like we planned it. It just happened.”

  “Nothing just happens,” he said, opening his eyes. “You cajoled, you manipulated, and you flat-out fucking lied.”

  For a stunned moment Evonne sat staring stone-faced at Jared. “We made love, Jared. Was it so bad for you?”

  He couldn’t believe she asked him that. He looked up at her wearing his T-shirt, wearing it like she’d always worn it. He remembered looking across the table at her the night before in the low lights of the lounge and wondering, why was she being so nice to him? Why was she telling on Tandi? He wondered no more. The reason was boldly in his face, and he couldn’t stand to look at her.

  Evonne asked again, “Making love to me wasn’t so bad, was it? It was great. We made great love.”

  Jared smirked cynically. “You got it wrong. We didn’t make love. I fucked and you were my spittoon.”

  Evonne gasped. “You don’t have to talk to me like that.”

  “Like what? Like you’re a whore?”

  “Why are you trying to hurt me? I told you the truth about Tandi. Do you think for one minute she would tell you she was seeing someone? She’s the one who’s lying to you. Yes, Tandi was my best friend, but—”

  “Then tell me, Evonne. How did Tandi’s best friend end up bare ass in my bed?”

  “Alcohol, Jared. We were both drunk.”

  “Tandi didn’t buy that lame-ass excuse, and neither am I.”

  “But it’s the truth.”

  He looked her dead in the eye. “Who drove us home?”

  “I did.”

  “So, I’m supposed to believe you were sober enough to drive, but not sober enough to stop what happened between us?”

  “I drove very carefully.”

  “So you knew what you were doing?”

  “I was drunk, Jared, but not as drunk as you. I can fix this with Tandi, if you want me to. I’ll go see her and—”

  “And what, Evonne?” he asked, suddenly shooting up out of his chair, sending his head spinning into orbit. He clutched his pounding head as he swayed woozily. “Damn.”

  Evonne sprang to her feet and reached out to catch him. “Are you all right?”

  He pushed her away and stepped even farther away from her himself. “How the hell did we end up screwing?”

  “We . . . it just—”

  “That’s bullshit!”

  “Okay. You want the truth? Then hear it. The truth is, Jared, you asked me to make love to you.”

  Drunk or sober, he had never been attracted to Evonne. He sneered at her. “You’re a goddamn liar! If I hadn’t been drunk, I would’ve fucked a dead duck before I would’ve touched you.”

  Jared’s words struck Evonne’s tongue mute. Stunned, she stared at him, unable to say anything that he would believe.

  Jared bounded over to the window and yanked on the drapes, pulling one side back to the wall. The sunlight shone brilliantly through the open blinds, sending a sharp pain through his eyes into the top of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his hands up against the sides of his head. He wanted to crush his own skull. It was no good to him if he couldn’t remember asking Evonne to make love to him. However, he couldn’t even remember leaving the lounge or getting home and climbing into bed with her. He did remember making love, but he thought it was Tandi he was with.

  Evonne crept over and stood just behind Jared. “Please don’t be angry at me.”

  He moved away. “Go home, Evonne.”

  “I didn’t lie to you, Jared. Tandi had no intention of coming back even before this happened. She—”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But she filed for divorce.”

  “Then why did she kiss me this morning?”

  “She didn’t kiss you, I did.”

  “Stop lying, Evonne! I know Tandi’s kiss.”

  “Do you? Last night when you were making love to me, you called me Tandi.”

  What he suspected, he was now sure of. “If I called you Tandi, Evonne, why the hell didn’t you stop what we were doing?”

  “Because you were making love to me, to my body, and it was everything I ever thought it would be. I didn’t want you to stop.”

  Jared could feel the hairs stand on his arms. He knew what he heard, he just couldn’t believe it. He had no idea Evonne had the hots for him, and he certainly never made a pass at her.

  “You want the real truth, Jared? Can you handle it?”

  “Are you capable of telling the truth?”

  “Yes, I am.” Evonne got closer to Jared. “Yes, I knew what I was doing, and I have no doubt you knew what you were doing and with whom. And, if you’ll admit that to yourself, you’ll forget about Tandi, just as she’s forgotten about you.”

  The previous night flashed in Jared’s mind. Why hadn’t he seen what Evonne was doing? Tandi was right about him. He never noticed anything, no matter how up in his face something was. He felt stupid. He watched Evonne come closer.

  “And in case you don’t remember, Jared. Last night you asked me if I wanted you since Tandi didn’t.”

  Jared couldn’t dispute what he couldn’t remember, but those words could never have come from his mouth.

  “I said yes last night,” Evonne said, pressing herself up against Jared’s unyielding, ramrod-straight body, “and I’m saying yes now.”

  Jared grabbed Evonne’s upper arms and brusquely shoved her away. She stumbled backward against the coffee table but she kept herself from falling.

  “You make me sick. Get out before I forget that I don’t hit women.”

  “Don’t be stupid! Tandi doesn’t want you.” Evonne started back to Jared and again tried to get close to him. “I’m the one who loves you, Jared. Not Tandi.”

  He couldn’t believe this was happening. Disgusted, he shoved Evonne harder, making her sprawl out on the floor. His T-shirt was above her waist, exposing her nakedness, repulsing him. He looked away.

  “Evonne, if I have to tell you again to get out, I’ll throw you out into the street just as you are.”

  Beginning to cry, Evonne awkwardly got up off the floor. “Jared, I’ve loved you for a long time. I can give you what Tandi never could—unconditionally.”

  “Can your lying, crazy ass give me my son, as he is, raised by Tandi? Can you give me the kind of love I would die to have back? And ask yourself this, Evonne, c
an you give me a strong enough stomach to ever wanna touch you again?”

  Hugging herself, Evonne cried, “Why are you treating me like this? I—”

  “Go! Get the fuck out and take that nasty-ass shirt with you.”

  Evonne ran from the room and up the stairs.

  Jared rushed to the foot of the stairs. “If you touch anything in that bedroom, I’ll kill you!” The pain in Jared’s head didn’t bother him anymore. The only thing that did was his fear that Tandi would never forgive him for sleeping with Evonne.

  24

  Tandi thought maybe if she could scream or even if she could cry, she might feel better. As hard as she tried, she could do neither. She felt as if a plastic bag had been pulled tightly over her face, suffocating her, taking her life’s breath. She had driven recklessly back to Sporty’s house, with all the windows open, gasping for air, praying she wouldn’t have an accident. She had to be around for Michael Jared—that she was cognizant of.

  Alone in the house, alone in her room, she had tried to make herself cry. She had clutched her stomach and doubled over, trying to drag the tears out. She had punched her thighs, she had latched on to her hair and pulled it at the roots, hurting herself, trying desperately to feel external pain so that she could cry, but nothing she inflicted upon herself was as painful as seeing Evonne, naked, in her bed next to Jared.

  Tandi tried hard to shake that hideous vision out of her head, but it wouldn’t leave her. It was as clear as if Evonne and Jared were at that moment in front of her. She couldn’t help but imagine Jared had touched Evonne like he used to touch her, that he’d done to Evonne what he hadn’t done to her in a very long time. What she wondered was, was this the first time or had they been sneaking around behind her back and laughing in her face? It didn’t matter the answer. She hated them both, and they were both deserving of any and all ill will she could wish for them.