by Remember Me
when she knew so much about her. For the past few days she had done some digging into
Heather’s past, but there were still questions she needed answers for.
“So, Margaret, how are you enjoying your vacation so far?” Heather asked, trying to
make small talk.
“It’s been really enlightening. I never thought that I would see as much as I’ve seen since
I arrived. It feels more like a learning experience than a vacation.”
“It must be really exciting to think that you’ll be starting college this fall. Are you excited
to get out on your own?”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Margaret had never seen this side of Heather before. She wore a pair of shorts and a loose
T-shirt and didn’t look as if she wanted to impress anyone. All the other times Margaret had seen
her, Heather wore very fashionable and exquisite clothing.
“I bet you can’t wait to get out and date some college guys too,” Heather smirked as she
winked at Margaret.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind playing the field a little bit.”
“That’s the way to do it, Margaret,” Heather said in an experienced tone of voice. “There
are a whole lot of streams emptying into that big pond. You ought to swim up a few and taste the
waters of each. That’s the only way you end up with a trout and not a carp.”
“That’s a pretty interesting analogy, Mrs. Whitmore. I didn’t know you liked to fish.”
“I like to think of myself as a versatile person. I enjoy being a housewife and camping
with some friends once in a while.”
“Your husband seems to be a pretty good catch.”
“Yeah, he’s the big fish in the pond.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Margaret asked in a reserved manner.
“Sure, Margaret.”
“How did you meet Mr. Whitmore?”
“We met in school. He and I dated off and on while we were in high school. We knew we
were right for each other, but we had to test our relationship to be sure.”
“Why was that?”
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“You want to be sure that you’ve found the right man before you make any strong
commitments. Sometimes the only way to know you’re with the right person is to break things
off for a while.”
Margaret could sense that Heather enjoyed giving advice on relationships.
“When did you know for sure that you wanted to spend your life with Mr. Whitmore?”
Margaret asked, acting the part of the mystified admirer, while trying to gain more information.
“It wasn’t until the very last football game of our senior year. Before that, I thought I
could live without him. He had really upset me earlier in the year. We had a fight, and were both
bullheaded. We split up for a few weeks.
“Then at our last home game, he ran in the winning touchdown, and I knew I had to get
him back. I approached him that night on main street when everyone was partying. The whole
school was out there. Everyone was celebrating because he’d gotten us into the state
tournament.”
“There were probably many girls out there who wanted him, huh?” Margaret played
along.
“Yeah,” answered Heather, “but I decided he was mine. I wasn’t going to let it end.
When you find a guy as great as Todd, you’ll do what it takes to get him. It didn’t take much,”
she smiled boastfully, “he wanted me back also. Then I knew that we were made for one another.
I wasn’t going to let him get away from me again. From then on, we just understood one another.
He’s a wonderful man.”
“You make it sound so perfect.”
“It has been wonderful.”
“It seems like every relationship has some rocky points in it,” spoke Margaret
unconvinced. “I can only imagine how hard it is to juggle all the responsibilities you and he
have. You’re both so important to the community. There must be a lot of pressure.”
“When you find the right man, problems don’t seem to have any meaning anymore.”
“So the time you were apart, neither of you dated anyone else?”
“I never stopped dating,” Heather spoke in an almost defensive tone. “He was seeing
somebody when we decided to get back together, but those people didn’t matter to either of us.
We still wanted to be together. We both remained faithful to the idea that we might be together
again.”
“That sounds so romantic,” Margaret sighed. “I’ve never had a relationship like that.”
“You’re still young, you have lots of time to find a guy who’ll be as good to you as
Todd’s been to me.”
“I don’t know,” Margaret continued, playing into the little charade, “I just got out of a
relationship where I thought we were meant for each other, and then I found out he’s been seeing
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other girls the whole time we were going out. I always thought I could trust him, but he deceived
me.”
“Don’t worry too much about guys like that. You’ll run into one from time to time. I
dated a few of them in my day. After a while, you get to a point where you can pick them out.
Then you just avoid them, or beat them at their own game.”
“I just don’t like knowing that I got walked on.”
“Learn from your mistakes,” Heather explained. “You have to look out for the signs.
Then, if you think a guy might try to walk on you, make sure he knows before hand that you
won’t stand for it. If you find out he’s already cheated on you, walk away and don’t look back.”
“I don’t ever want it to get that far into a relationship and find out I’ve been cheated on
again. I wish I could see the signs better than I do, so I could tell if there’s a chance he would
cheat on me before hand. I don’t want to have to worry about it.”
“You’re right,” answered Heather. “That was the thing I liked most about Todd. I knew I
would never have to worry about him. He’s so involved with his family and making the city a
better place, I don’t think the thought could ever cross his mind.”
“I think I’ll take a break from the social scene for a while.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Heather uttered as she looked up from her salad that she had finished
preparing. “If you just drop out of the dating game, you’ve let your boyfriend win.”
“But I don’t want anything to do with him again.”
“No, you shouldn’t go back,” Heather agreed, “but don’t let a bad experience stop you.”
“What would you do?”
“I had ways of dealing with instances such as yours in my youth.”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have gone after someone just like him.”
“Why?”
“To settle the score. You can’t go back to your boyfriend to seek your revenge, but you
can find someone just like him.”
“What good would that do?” Margaret asked intently.
“It allows you to work out your resentment on someone who probably deserves it, and
rebuild your self esteem. Then you can look at it as a clean slate.”
“But how do you get even?”
“You let him think you’re the lamb, and make him think you don’t know anything about
his game. Guy
s like that get so wrapped up in themselves and the control that they have in their
relationships. Let him feel comfortable, then take control. Make him feel powerless to you, and
then move in for the kill. You destroy guys like that by destroying their ego, but first you have to
make them lower their defenses.”
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“You sound like a pro at this,” Margaret said with a smile.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve played the game, but I was pretty good at it in my day.”
“So what did it feel like when you met Todd? How did you know that he wasn’t one of
these guys?”
“When you find the right guy, everything changes,” answered Heather. “Ever since the
night Todd won our final football game, my life has been like a dream. We went to the state
championships and won every game we played. We took the state title, and Todd got into college
on a scholarship. It allowed us to get married his first year of college.”
“How did he get involved in politics?”
“He always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. It wasn’t very long after we
got back from college that he was running for office.”
“So why did you get married so young?”
“It never seemed like we were that young. We were on cloud nine the whole time we
were together. We had our lives planned out once we knew he had landed the football
scholarship. We just felt invincible. I don’t know how else to describe it, except that it all seems
so unreal. We weren’t afraid of anything. We took what we wanted and didn’t care what others
thought. We were making plans to get married before we had even finished high school.”
“How did he propose?”
“Todd proposed to me on our graduation night.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him yes without any hesitation. I knew right then that he was who I wanted to
spend my life with. He filled practically every void I needed in my life.”
“Still, you were awfully young. Do you ever regret getting married that early?”
“No,” answered Heather. “We enjoyed college. It practically paid for itself. Then we
came back to town and everybody knew our names. There weren’t very many kids our age who
had a college degree. We had all sorts of respect. We did well in the furniture business until he
built up a name for himself. He ran for city council three years after we graduated, and worked
his way up to mayor.”
“So there isn’t anything you ever did in your life that you regret?”
“No,” answered Heather plainly. “I can’t think of a single thing I would change if I had it
all to do over again. I can’t imagine any way that I could improve it. I look at my life as some
kind of fairy tale. Todd’s my handsome prince and I’ve lived happily ever after.”
“Wow,” Margaret spoke, her eyes dreamy. “I hope that I can look back at my life with
that kind of feeling of accomplishment. I can’t wait to meet the right guy and get married. I hope
I can be as good of a mother and wife as you are to your family.”
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The conversation had begun to make Margaret feel sick. She had never met somebody so
wrapped up in herself before, but still she pressed on, wanting to see her reaction to the
questions. She went on, pretending to enjoy listening to Heather describe her life.
“Oh Margaret, come on now,” Heather smiled over at her. “It looks like your mother’s
done an excellent job of raising you. You must have had a pretty good role model as a parent.”
“Yeah,” assured Margaret. “You just seem to have it all. You’re successful in the
community, your husband is incredible and you’ve raised a wonderful family. You balance
everything so well, I just don’t understand how you do it all.”
“You can do anything, if you want it bad enough and put your mind to it,” explained
Heather. “You’re so young, and you have your whole life to make a mark in this world, but I can
already tell that you’re going to make it big, Margaret.”
“I plan to dedicate my life to science.”
“Why’s that?” Heather asked with interest.
“I was somewhat thrown into it.”
“Well that’s impressive, Margaret. Science isn’t an easy field to go into. It’s nice to see
young people interested in something which is so challenging. I wish I could get Carol to start
thinking of what field she wants to pursue.”
“She has other interests,” urged Margaret.
“Yeah, and he’s two years older than she is. I wish she would take interest in something
other than extra-curricular activities.”
“Perhaps she just looks at how well you did for yourself and wants to be like her mother.”
“Well, my husband wasn’t enlisted in the military.”
“You don’t like her dating a guy who’s in the military?”
“Not particularly.”
“Why not?” asked Margaret intently.
“I’ve heard all sorts of stories about men in the military,” explained Heather. “They’re
always having affairs with women while their wives sit home unexpectedly, or they beat their
wives. I don’t want her to become one of those women.”
“She seems like she has her head on pretty straight,” Margaret defended her young friend.
“I think she’s watching out for herself.”
“I just don’t want her to have to settle for second best. She can do better than him. I want
her life to have as much meaning as mine did. It’s something about when you have your own
children. You want the best for them and you’ll do whatever it takes, no matter what the cost. I
want her to be able to marry a man just like her father.”
“I don’t wish to argue with you,” Margaret began carefully, “but if you make it harder for
her to see him, she’s just going to try harder to keep seeing him.”
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“I just don’t know if I can trust her to watch out for herself.”
“Everybody makes a mistake once in a while.”
“I know, but it would be really hard on her since her father’s the mayor of the city. There
are so many nicer guys out there she should be seeing.”
“You’re right,” answered Margaret, realizing this was a touchy subject and deciding to
back off, “but I think that you’ll find out things will take care of themselves in time. She’s a
bright girl, and she’ll make the right decisions.”
“I hope you’re right,” answered Heather.
“I believe she has her mother’s good senses,” Margaret complimented her unsuspecting
quarry.
“Well thank you, Margaret,” Heather answered without blushing. “You’re a good friend
to Carol. She’s never really had a close friend before. I wish she looked at the guys she dated the
same way you do. You’re a really good role model for her.”
Margaret returned home early in the evening and sat down to play cards with her aunt and
uncle. The group stayed up quite late talking about the family gossip. She felt glad finally to
have some time to spend with the older couple. She knew they didn’t mind that she didn’t spend
much time there
, but still felt guilty she hadn’t spent much time with them.
Margaret retired to her room early into the morning. Her mind was already overwhelmed
with thoughts she wanted to get down on paper. She wrote about the events of the day, and went
into detail explaining her talk with Heather.
“...Lately I’ve been thinking about Jeremy. I tried to put him out of my mind, but the
scene I witnessed with Todd Whitmore brought back bad memories of the last time I saw him.
During my talk with Heather today, I learned a lot about how she views life in general. I
must say that I have never met such a proud woman in all my life. Her snobbery and egotistical
view of herself literally makes me gag. I thought at first that she might have come across badly
to me, but the more I get to know her, the more I realize how precise my original feelings about
her were.
I asked her what she thought I should do about Jeremy. I don’t really plan to get back
together with him, but I wanted her opinion on things. I wanted to see how she would handle a
situation like mine.
Heather told me she thought I should get even with someone else just like him. I don’t
usually handle things this way, but perhaps she’s right. Maybe I should find someone who just
uses people and destroy him. Somebody just like her husband. It’s funny how she doesn’t even
realize what’s going on.
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Through watching her talk with her friends, who are just a group of women who seem to
worship the ground she walks on, I’ve realized she has built this little make-believe world which
she lives in. She does a pretty convincing job of making people believe that she’s a model
citizen.
Looking through her home, she has many awards from local organizations which honor
her as a wonderful person. I really wonder what people would think if they knew about her past.
I wonder what sort of award she would get recognized for if they knew she had three abortions
before getting married.
I was able to squeeze a lot of information out of her today about her family. She looks at
her entire life as some kind of fairy tale. It’s funny, but you never see Cinderella run off to get an
abortion before she finally shacks up with her prince. Of course, you never hear about the prince