The subject of kids was a different story. He knew Charlotte wanted kids and hoped one day she’d at least consider being open to going to have some tests done to see if there might be any problems. Until then, he’d be patient and be ready to discuss the subject whenever she might be ready to talk.
Xavier could only think of two things that still irked him after all the time they’d been married. The first thing was that whenever Charlotte washed dishes, she always faced the dishes in the wrong direction in the dish drainer. His mother and grandmother always faced the front of the plates away. The other thing she did was to put the toilet paper on the roll backward, so that the tissue hung down in the back instead of the front when pulling it down. He always had to pull from the back, and it was awkward to him. So without saying anything, he’d change the roll whenever he saw it had been turned the wrong way.
These two things irked him, but weren’t anything he’d have to go see a counselor about. The dishes always dried whichever way they were turned, and the toilet paper still did its job when needed.
As far as Xavier was concerned, he and Charlotte were in pretty good shape. Especially now that she was warming back up to him and giving him another chance. He was looking forward to their free time that evening. He couldn’t wait for their one-on-one time, without the interruption of others. The marriage retreat was turning out to be the best thing they could have done for their marriage.
Charlotte returned from the bathroom with a thick, brown, expanding accordion file in her hand. He hadn’t seen this folder before and hadn’t noticed it packed among the things in her suitcase. Xavier looked at her questioningly, wondering what it could be.
She smiled as she sat next to him, but her smile wasn’t that of love and hopeful reconciliation. It was a smile that more closely resembled the smirk Phillip had displayed earlier that morning. The smirk gave him an uneasiness in his stomach.
Charlotte placed the folder on the opposite side of her on the floor, well away from him. “What did I miss?” she said. Her voice—unlike her smirk—was delightful and pleasant. Her demeanor continually caused Xavier’s stomach to feel uneasy.
Phillip filled her in. “George was just telling us how sometimes the intangible things in a marriage can compound any other problems that may be present. The little things can often mean a lot; especially when there are quite a few little things to factor in.
“We’ve reviewed the intangible problems and problems with religion. What would you all like to discuss next?” Phillip asked.
“How about the subject of sex and lies?” Charlotte asked.
Xavier didn’t know exactly where Charlotte was going with what she was saying, but he had a sinking feeling that it couldn’t be going anywhere good.
“Sex and lies?” Phillip asked.
“Yeah. I mean you’ve discussed the fact that couples need to let the other spouse know where they stand when it comes to sex. But what if you’ve done that, but a spouse doesn’t adhere to what you’ve established verbally and doesn’t adhere to what should be understood in a marriage?” Charlotte asked.
“That’s a very good point,” Phillip said. “When talking about the areas of S.M.I.R.K, I did so with the understanding that each spouse needs to be open and honest in each of these areas. When you add lies into the equation, they lead to dishonesty. If there is dishonesty, you will not be able to effectively work out problems you may be having.”
Phillip looked around at each person in the room with utmost sincerity. “You’ve got to be open and honest with your spouses. If not, then you’re wasting your time at this retreat and taking up space where another couple could have been sitting.”
Xavier clearly heard what Phillip was saying, and he had kept the whole truth from his wife. But he wasn’t about to start divulging extra information about the other escapades outside of his marriage, especially when Charlotte didn’t know anything about them. He’d had friends who hadn’t been loyal to their wives. Often times, the wives did find out about some of their extra curricular activities, but none of the guys had been dumb enough to let the women know everything. What the women didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And for the most part, the guys cut back on what they were doing or completely stopped, realizing the grass wasn’t always greener on the other side.
Charlotte didn’t have to know about his other activities. Knowing about Yasmine was enough. The Yasmine subject alone had almost brought their marriage to an end. Xavier shuttered to think what she would do if she found out about any one else, especially their neighbor, Carly, a supposable good friend of Charlotte’s, who smiled in her face whenever she got the chance; especially when they had book club meetings.
“Okay, so on the subject of sex, what if you’ve talked to your spouse about being honest and they tell you wholeheartedly they’re being open?” Charlotte asked.
“Then it’s at that point you have to trust in the person you’ve married. You have to take them at their word,” Phillip said.
“But what if you can’t do that? What if you know they’re not telling you the truth?” Charlotte asked.
“Well, that depends on what you mean by knowing the other person isn’t telling the truth. Let’s just say it’s a wife for instance?” Phillip said.
Charlotte nodded her head in agreement.
“And let’s just say she doesn’t trust something her husband is saying because she has that strong women’s intuition you ladies often have. Or maybe even a friend who might be voicing their own personal concerns to the wife,” Phillip said and smiled.
Charlotte sat unsmiling at Phillip’s statements about intuition and friends.
Xavier, as well as the others sitting around the table, watched the conversation between Phillip and Charlotte like it was a tennis match.
“Then again, you still need to trust what the other spouse is saying. Later on this week we’ll be talking about communication barriers.” Phillip chuckled. “Believe me when I say the brain often distorts stuff.”
“What if it’s not intuition?” Charlotte asked. “What if you just know without a shadow of doubt that this person is not being honest with you? You know they’re downright lying, or shall I say withholding information?”
“Again, that just depends on what you might have. Or shall I say the hypothetical person might have. I would encourage that person to talk with their spouse again and call them on it. Maybe that person is scared and just needs some encouragement. Especially when it comes to us guys. Sometimes we get scared when we think there might be something you women will hold against us or just go completely off on us.”
Without even knowing it, Xavier nodded his head in agreement, ever so slightly.
“So you think the hypothetical woman should talk to the hypothetical man again and show him that she knows he’s lying?” Charlotte asked.
“Or withholding,” Phillip said. He smiled encouragingly at Charlotte and Xavier.
Charlotte nodded her head in understanding.
Xavier knew everyone in the room knew who the hypothetical wife and husband were. But surely Charlotte hadn’t found anything concrete for which she could hold him accountable. He’d seen the test results for the STD. That was concrete, but they’d already discussed it at length. She’d tried time after time to get him to tell her the exact details of the affair, but he held firm in keeping everything else to himself.
Xavier had also held fast, saying the affair was completely over. He didn’t have, and had never had, any real feelings for the other woman. And he adamantly tried reassuring Charlotte that she didn’t have to ever worry about him sleeping with another woman again.
The tennis match spectacle had all eyes landing on Charlotte. She seemed oblivious to the fact that everyone was focused on her. Taking a deep breath, she turned her body and attention to her husband. “Xavier, is there anything you want to tell me?”
Without even allowing his mind to complete a full thought, Xavier said, “Nah.”
Charlot
te leaned over and pulled the thick accordion file off the floor. She opened it and pulled out three sheets of stapled paper. Upon further inspection of the file, Xavier saw that it had tabs separating the compartments by months. And from what he could tell, each compartment had something in it.
“Xavier, I’ve tried and tried to get you to tell me the truth about what you’ve been doing behind my back, but you continually tell me there’s nothing going on. I’ve asked you time and time again to just be honest with me. You continually tell me you’re being honest. Even less than an hour ago, out on that porch, you held my hands, looked in my eyes, and tried your best to assure me that you have been and are being honest with me,” Charlotte said.
Even though Charlotte had asked the question, Xavier sat stone still with tight lips.
“What? You don’t have any reassurances for me right now?” Charlotte said.
Her tone and demeanor mirrored the way she had been acting just before she sprung the STD test results on him. Xavier knew he’d better say something. That day sitting at their dining room table, Charlotte had only had one thin little envelope with just enough damaging information to cause his wife to leave him for a few days. That one sheet had caused her to almost leave him for good. If not for the reassurances he’d given her, Xavier was sure she’d have left him long ago.
It was as if he had lockjaw. His mouth refused to move, which was a good thing because he had no idea what would end up tumbling out.
“Go ahead and admit it, Xavier. Admit you’ve been lying to me,” Charlotte said.
His body seemed to have contracted the lockjaw also. He couldn’t even nod his head to answer her question.
“Charlotte, do you and Xavier want to go into another room so you can discuss whatever is bothering you?” Phillip asked.
Without looking in Phillip’s direction, Charlotte said, “No, we can discuss this right here and now. Nobody is perfect in this room, and everybody has skeletons. I’m just the only one in here who is about to let those skeletons breathe.”
“Yes, but Charlotte—” Phillip attempted.
Charlotte held up her hand to stop him from speaking. “Honestly, I don’t have a problem with talking in front of you all. And unless my husband says he has a problem, we can finish this right here.”
The tennis match spectators turned all eyes to Xavier. This was the time to say something, the time to save face and go into another room with his wife so that they could talk about whatever was on her mind. But his body still refused to obey his brain.
“So, there you have it. He doesn’t mind either,” Charlotte said.
Charlotte picked up the piece of paper she was holding in her hand. “For the month of May there were fifteen phone calls made from your phone to the number 555-1837 and twenty-eight calls received from the same number. In the month of June there were fifty-one calls to the same number and forty-seven calls received by you from that number.” Charlotte paused and looked at Xavier. “Do I need to continue with July and August?”
Xavier couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How had she known about all those calls? The only way was if she had a detailed phone bill for his cellular phone. He had to think of something to say quickly.
“Those were all business calls. You know how my work cell phone goes out. I started using my personal cell phone to take care of needed business transactions for work. That’s the phone number for the new sales guy who started a few months back. I was his mentor.” Xavier chuckled with nervousness. “He was a slow learner at first, so I had to keep on top of things with him until he fully learned the ropes.”
“Oh really, Xavier? Is this new sales guy named Angel? What is he? A transvestite with an unusually high soprano voice?” Charlotte taunted.
How did Charlotte know the phone number belonged to Angel? He wondered if Charlotte had called Angel and gotten her voice mail or something. Angel had never mentioned talking to his wife.
He stammered, “Baby, what are you talking about? Who’s Angel?”
Charlotte pulled a sheet out of the July section of the accordion file. “And I quote, ‘Hey, baby, it’s Angel. Where you at? I’ve been waiting for over thirty minutes. You said you’d be here thirty minutes ago. You know I gotta go to work in a few hours. I wanted to spend a little time with you. Call me as soon as you get this to let me know when you’ll be here.’ That was a phone message Miss Angel left you on July 21st,” Charlotte said. “Funny, I don’t remember hearing anything about any sales tips in that message.” Charlotte’s voice was full of facetiousness.
He didn’t remember getting that particular message from Angel, but it sounded like one of her typical messages, vernacular and all. Had Charlotte been listening to his cell phone messages somehow?”
Charlotte directed her full attention to Xavier as if there was no one else sitting in the room. “Do you want to hear more?” She paused. “I’ve got more.”
Xavier shook his head.
“Oh no, humor me, please.” She pulled another sheet out of the accordion file; this time from the label titled July. She traced her finger down the sheet. “Okay, here’s a real good one. ‘Hey, Xavier, I got your message, and last night was absolutely wonderful. I just hate that things got cut short. Let me know when Charlotte is scheduled to be out of town again. I’ll check and see if the date coincides with any of the times Quincy will be out of town. Call me back after six o’clock. Quincy has a meeting and won’t be home.’”
Xavier’s mouth dropped. He couldn’t be hearing what he thought he was hearing. He remembered that particular message well. It was from their neighbor, Carly. And even though Carly hadn’t left her name on the message, Xavier knew good and well Charlotte had known who the voice belonged to. Carly had left messages on their home answering machine many times, especially about their book club meetings.
“Charlotte, I—” Xavier began to say, but Charlotte cut him off.
“No no. There’s one more thing I want you to listen to.” She pulled out another sheet of paper. “Now this one is a little different, a dialogue of sorts which went as follows.
“PrettyB: What’s up with you?
“Sunshine627: Nothing much. When are we going to hook up?
“PrettyB: That’s up to you.
“Sunshine627: Told you I’m game. When you gonna post a picture? I want to see if you look like you described yourself.
“PrettyB: LOL, I told you I am still new at this whole chatting thing.
“Sunshine627: Yeah right. We been chatting for over a month. Even I can tell you how to post your picture.
“PrettyB: Okay. Truth is, I am a little shy, and I don’t want to put a picture on this site. You know there are a lot of weirdos out on the Internet.
“Sunshine627: You could always e-mail a picture to me.
“PrettyB: Nah, I want you to meet me up close and personal. Pictures don’t do me justice.
“PrettyB: You still there, Sunshine?
“Sunshine627: Uh yeah, I gotta go. I just heard my boyfriend’s car pull up.”
Charlotte looked up at Xavier, and then at the others seated around the table. “That was one of the tamer messages. I’ll spare you all the details of the many other Internet correspondences my husband has been having.”
“Okay, Charlotte. We need to talk,” Xavier said. He had no idea what else his wife might pull out of the file, and didn’t want to find out in front of the others.
“Oh, so now you want to talk?” Charlotte said. She folded her arms. “Go ahead and talk.”
“Not in front of everyone. We need to talk this out in private.”
“What? Is all this too uncomfortable for you? Can’t stand the heat?” Charlotte asked.
Phillip interjected, looking at his watch. “Hey, everyone, it’s time for our scheduled break. And after the break, I’d like for you all to talk one-on-one with your spouse about each part in the S.M.I.R.K. acronym and how it relates to your marriage. Don’t worry about meeting back here at The Round Ta
ble.” His eyes darted toward Xavier and Charlotte. “I want you to find some place where you and your spouse can talk privately.
Phillip directed his attention to the others at the table. “And if there is anything either of you two other couples need to talk about, then I strongly encourage you to do so. As John 8:32 says, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Amen, Xavier thought, hoping finally telling his wife the truth would make him free.
Chapter 16
Xavier Knight
Tuesday: 3:33 P.M.
Charlotte sat on the twin bed opposite Xavier. With folded arms, she stared him down. He could feel her eyes on him.
In his lap he held the expanding file Charlotte had pulled all of her information from. She’d been silent for the past fifteen minutes as she watched his trembling hands go through the entire contents of the file. From the months of February through July, he’d found sheet after sheet of damaging information. He didn’t set the file down until he’d scanned the last sheet.
He dropped his head, not knowing what to say.
“What are you dropping your head for? No need to be ashamed now; now that you’ve been caught,” Charlotte said. “Do you want to explain?”
“Explain what? It looks like you’ve done quite a good deal of investigation yourself.”
Charlotte stood, crossing the room to pick up a copy of one of the detailed cell phone bills. “Explain this. What was so important that you and these Angel and Yasmine women needed to talk over five hundred times in a six month period? And you and Carly talked a hundred times or more. Since I can’t get a detailed phone bill for land line calls, I am sure it’s been way more than that.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like I talked to them that many times,” Xavier said. And it was true. He hadn’t realized it had been that much.
“I’m surprised you found time to work, talking to them so much. And it’s a wonder I talked to you at all. But let’s see, I did at least get the chance to talk to you one hundred and eighty times. Maybe I am a little special.”
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