The Other Other Woman

by Mallory Lockhart

  “Don’t worry, I know you only have a few minutes. I promise not to molest you,” I said, rolling my eyes. He smiled as I pulled him on to the bed with me. He looked so handsome. All fresh and clean from his post-workout shower, in just a light lavender T-shirt and black cargo shorts. It was a nice change, seeing him really casual instead of in a sport coat. He sure did like him some purple.

  He clasped my hand in his and kissed the back of it, holding it while we spoke. He was leaning on one arm, using his other hand to gently push my hair behind my ear as we kissed very lightly and sweetly, stopping every few seconds or so for him to ask me about the previous night. He let go of my hand and stroked my face, kissing me mid-sentence several times, which made me completely lose track of my thoughts. He seemed completely focused on me, and I felt like maybe his feelings for me had changed too. I had never seen him be so attentive, looking at me with such adoration, that I found it both exhilarating and confusing at the same time. Maybe this really was what he wanted.

  I was quickly brought back down to earth, however, by the alarming sound of his phone going off like crazy. He tried to ignore the texts at first and didn’t read them in front of me. But it was obvious he had to get going. I needed to check out anyway, and I was supposed to meet Brooke for lunch. I still wasn’t very good at saying goodbye to him. He slid his entire body on top of me to give me another incredibly slow, deep kiss, but it was overwhelmingly sad for me. I never knew where we stood, and I was too chicken to ask him. Everything was so magical and so perfect when we were together, like I was the most important woman in the world to him. And it just seemed to rot and decay once we were apart.

  After he kissed me, I got up and went into the bathroom, fidgeting nervously with my travel-sized containers still left on the counter.

  “Aren’t you even going to walk me to the door?” he said, kind of surprised.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry…”

  His phone was still going off and he checked it quickly, looking up at me like he was ashamed and said, “Just Twitter feeds.”

  Sure they were.

  He hugged and kissed me on his way out the door. As soon as he was gone, I knew I had to act fast. I wasn’t leaving town without checking on one tiny little detail. I called Brooke and told her that I needed to skip lunch because my mom called and Ruby had thrown up. That was actually true, but my mom didn’t tell me I had to rush home. Then I threw my bags in the car and called Jules from the parking lot. “Okay, so I need you to help me play detective,” I said.

  “Oooh are we stalking!? Just like old times!”

  “I need you to look up an address for me, for Katya…”

  “How do you spell Wonderbread Queen’s last name again?” she replied eagerly.

  “B-A-T-S-E-V-I-C-H, if there is nothing on White pages, check Spokeo…”

  “Okay, I got it, 6910 Sunrise Ct. Atlanta, GA”

  “Got it. I’m mapping it now.”

  “You think he’s over there?”

  “I sure do.”

  “What happened? Wasn’t he coming over to say goodbye?”

  “Oh, he did. It was great, actually. But I just can’t shake this feeling. I need to know if he was going over there right after putting his tongue down my throat. Oh God…” I added, my stomach lurching.

  “What?”

  “I just realized that’s where his gym is. Sunrise. I knew that sounded familiar. How much you want to bet he owns the condo where she lives? I know he owns one in Atlanta, he told me. She probably gets free rent in exchange for sexual favors.”

  “Gross.”

  “Okay, stay on the phone with me please, in case I freak out.”

  “Well, I’m not about to miss this!”

  I drove over to the address she had given me. It was about ten minutes from the hotel, if that. It was a townhouse complex, rather ugly and dated with that wood siding, solar panel look from the 80’s. Certainly not my style or a place I would ever want to live. I definitely did not want to get caught in there, so I drove around quickly, not really paying that much attention to the building numbers. “Okay, I’ve pretty much gone through the entire complex, there’s no silver BMW in here at all. Some Mercedes, and one Lexus, but no BMW,” I said with a great sigh of relief.

  “That’s good. That’s very good.”

  “Yeah. All right, I guess I’ll head home…” I suddenly felt like I had been punched in the throat. “OH NO. NO NO NO! Are you kidding me!?”

  “What?”

  “I found it.”

  “What?! His car?!”

  “Yeah, there’s a silver BMW up here on the right, just as you get near the entrance. Damn it. It’s got to be him. Got to be. I mean, what are the chances?”

  “No way. What a stupid fucker!”

  “I’m taking a pic of the plate. I don’t know what his is though. I can’t remember it now.” I took a picture of the car from far away, hoping I could zoom in on the plate later, and got the hell out of there.

  “What the heck happened this morning?”

  “Nothing! He came over and he was super sweet and loving, but something was just off. He was acting so shady and vague compared to how he was yesterday. I just got this weird feeling something was up. I know when I’m being lied to, you know? He kissed me goodbye, told me he would call me later, and then he went to go fuck his foreigner.”

  “Seriously, Mallory, if I ever see him… I’m going to run him over with my car.”

  I got off the phone and headed home. Devastated. Absolutely shattered. Such a great weekend ruined in one three minute drive around a parking lot. Why on earth did I do that? I felt vindicated now, but at what cost? Six straight hours was a long time to cry. Especially when you were trying to keep your eyes on the road.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, as I was driving, I looked down and noticed a white envelope sitting just inside the driver’s side door. Shit. I had totally forgotten about my birthday card. He probably wondered why I hadn’t even thanked him for it. I needed to stop to get some coffee anyway, so I opened the envelope. It was just a notecard, not even an actual birthday card.

  Hey Mal, I wanted to help with your ticket to MIA, so Happy Birthday! Mattie

  There was a pile of cash inside, plus a $25 Starbucks gift card. How touching and personal. If I didn’t feel like a stupid hooker before, I certainly did now. I bet that was the real reason he went back to the office the day before. I knew he kept Starbucks cards and probably notecards too in his desk for clients. I guess grand romantic gestures were not his forte, but having a giant wad of cash thrown at me after sex wasn’t mine either.

  I was shocked to see his number pop up just about an hour into my trip. As usual, he caught me off guard, and I was not prepared to have any breakup conversations on I-85. I just needed to get home. So I pretended everything was okay and we chatted for a few minutes. He checked to see if Ruby was feeling better and how traffic was. I apologized for forgetting about his card and thanked him for the money, reminding him again that he really didn’t have to do that. He insisted that he wanted to. He asked me to let him know that I got home safe, like nothing was wrong and nothing had changed, which just made the silent tears pour down my face even harder.

  I started thinking once I hung up. Knowing what I knew about him physically, it seemed very odd to me that he could have driven over to her condo, had sex with her, left, and called me that quickly. He was an older man, he liked to relax first, have a drink, and kiss for a while; not to mention–he had staying power. There was no way he was doing all of that, plus getting cleaned up afterwards in one hour. No way.

  I looked closely at the picture of the car again. I think his car looked like that, it was silver. It was a BMW, but definitely not a newer model. But now that I thought about it, his seemed a little curvier than this one. The one at the townhouse was very square. The front license plate was covered by an advertisement from the place the car was purchased. I knew his had that as well, I remembered seeing it the day bef
ore in the parking deck. So it had to be his. Had to be, I thought…

  I remembered when I was about an hour away from home that he had once sent me a picture of him in his tight little cycling outfit. He was standing next to the back of his car. I never really noticed the car sitting there. I was way too focused on other elements of the picture–his playful boyish smile, his sexy legs, perhaps his crotch in those bike shorts. I tried cropping it, (the car, not his crotch) in an attempt to determine if I could see the license plate up close, but unfortunately I could not. I did, however, notice that the shape of the headlights looked different to me. I quickly texted Jules. I need you to look at this for me, and tell me if the cars look the same.

  What?! Oh, it has to be his car!

  Okay, but look at these two pics… the headlights especially. I quickly sent them over to her.

  Dude… that is a totally different car.

  OMG. This would have been nice to know 5 hours and 5 gallons of tears ago.

  Wow. We are awesome at stalking. True professionals! LOL

  Tell me about it.

  Feel better now?

  Immensely.

  Good. I still hate him.

  I know, I replied.

  Once home, I texted him to let him know I arrived safely. Back home

  He responded: Great, babe. Talk Monday. Awesome time.

  Talk Monday? Here we go, I thought, already falling into the same pattern. He couldn’t get enough of me while I was naked underneath him, but once I was gone, I was just an afterthought, an interruption to his normal weekend routine. Just his weekday girlfriend. We wouldn’t want him wasting any extra energy on me on a Sunday. Is Sunday your Mallory vacation day? It is a holy day after all, I responded.

  Not at all, just not sure what I’m doing. Talk Tmrw.

  As if he was doing me a favor.

  I was messing around on my laptop after the kids had gone to bed and decided to look up Katya on a few of those people search websites. I found the address Jules had given me but also more recent information. Her current address was completely different. I thought that this was good news, at first, but it quickly dawned on me that it could potentially be really bad news. He could have very well gone to her condo that afternoon. But it definitely wasn’t the one I went to; she didn’t live there anymore. It was obvious that at one point, she did live in a condo that he owned. Now, maybe that was all part of him and his friend “sponsoring her,” but it didn’t sit well with me. I just reminded myself that he wouldn’t have called me so soon into my trip if he had really gone to see her. There just wouldn’t have been enough time. Once again, I tried to put Miss Katya out of my mind.

  I talked to Brooke that Sunday. I told her that, while we had a great time together that Friday, I wasn’t really sure where Matt and I stood anymore. That we had had a lot of arguments lately, that he wasn’t as attentive as he used to be. She wrote it off as the “honeymoon period” being over. She said it was clear to her, not only by the way he acted toward me on a business level but also by the way she saw us sitting and laughing together, that he was very fond of me.

  “I don’t know, I feel like everything is basically okay,” I said. “But I probably wouldn’t mention anything about me to him. I don’t want to give him the impression that I’m spilling things about our personal relationship. You know how private he is.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking about that,” she said. “I think the best thing for me to do is to pretend like I don’t even know. I mean, obviously I do know, because I’m a genius, but I think that would be the best thing.”

  “I don’t know what’s up with him lately, he seems to be shutting me out and not being very open about how he feels or when we will see each other again,” I said sadly. “Not that he’s ever been particularly forthcoming about his feelings in general. It’s so great when we are together, but I leave never really knowing where I stand.”

  “Why don’t you just make him commit to a date?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Tell him he has to see me by “X” date?”

  “Not exactly. Tell him you feel better knowing that he’s making you a priority and just say ‘How about we get together during the week of, whatever,’ and just pick a week coming up in a few weeks, you know?”

  “You have a point there; I might have to do that. Problem is he keeps talking about coming to Miami with us. How do you feel about that?”

  “I think that would be great! That would be so fun! No one says he’s got to stay at the condo with us, he could stay at one of his other places!”

  “That’s true, but you don’t think it would mess up our girl thing?”

  “Well, I know you don’t like chilling on the beach for too long. So, if he wants to come pick you up and take you out of my hair for a few hours… I can lay my ass up on the beach and sleep!”

  “Yeah, I guess. But that’s still almost six weeks away, I don’t want to go that long without seeing him again. I nearly lost my mind this last time.”

  “Then I think you need to tell him that, boo.”

  “Probably so,” I agreed.

  Nate came by to get the kids for the evening. He was still staying at his friend’s house. The guy told him he was welcome to bring the girls over there whenever he wanted to, that they wouldn’t cause any trouble for him at all. I was hopeful that this would be the start of him making more of an effort to see them. He hadn’t seen them for more than an hour or two once or twice a week since the split. He refused to come into our house at all once he moved out, claiming it made him too upset to come back there. But he still had a key and I could tell he was coming over during the day to snoop around when I was working. But because of his “rule,” he always had to bring them back in time for me to put them to bed. He came to pick them up around 5:30 that Sunday night, which gave me a couple of hours to myself. In the middle of my browsing at Target, I got a text from him. My oldest daughter had ratted me out.

  Be honest with me, I didn’t even ask and Claire told me you went to Atlanta on Friday. Did you see your man? At this stage I guess you are going to do what you are going to do, but I would rather know the truth.

  My man? I responded. I wasn’t aware that Brooke had a penis. It was no secret I was going down there so we could celebrate our birthdays with her friends, it was all over Facebook.

  I’m not on your Facebook. After seeing those texts from before you can see why I’d be insecure, you’re just a stranger to me now.

  If you are talking about Matt, yes, he met us for drinks and apps before we went out. It was all very scandalous, what with him buying us wine and then going home to his wife.

  Well, that wasn’t a lie. I added: But you are correct that I am going to do whatever I want to do and there is going to come a point where I will date someone. But it’s really not your business anymore, just as what you do is not mine.

  It doesn’t matter. The person I loved is gone.

  He went on like that for at least another hour, increasing in hostility. Fiercely typing texts about how soulless and horrible of a person I was, that I just threw away 17 years of friendship for nothing. He felt that it was barbaric that I wouldn’t at least go to counseling to try to reconcile, even after how I had wronged him. If I was such a disgusting human being, why would he even want me back?

  Why don’t you go spend some quality time with our daughters that you haven’t seen in over a week instead of worrying about who your soon to be ex-wife is sleeping with? That was what I wanted to say. I probably would have been pissed too. I really had completely cut him out of my life if it didn’t involve the kids. But he gave me no choice.

  Monday morning Matt was his normal, cheerful self. He no longer seemed upset about Brooke finding out about us. He went up and hugged her that morning and tried to clear the air a bit before calling me.

  “Morning sweetie! What’s up? I told Brooke she was too smart for her own good… Too funny.”

  “Yes, she is,” I responded. “I think a l
ot of things started coming back to her suddenly. I am still cracking up at how she busted me. Like I was in front of a judge!”

  “Convicted, baby!”

  “Lock me up and throw away the key!” I laughed.

  I told him how I got the third degree from Nate the night before. Not mentioning that Nate knew anything about him at all, of course. Just letting him know that he texted me for two hours straight about how miserable of a person I was, how cold and evil I was, how sexually repressed I was (Oh, really?).

  “Um, well, personally I would NOT agree, but what do I know!? Seriously, it must be a pain dealing with that all the time, babe.”

  “It seemed pretty unrepressed to me. Particularly that second time.”

  “AGREED.”

  “Sorry about all the cursing, by the way,” I added, giggling.

  “Hahaha that was good stuff.”

  “Did Molly say she had fun with us?”

  “Yes, she did. But we have not had a chance to talk any details,” he replied.

  “Well you should have seen her! She was all up on the pole at that one place.”

  “You are kidding me! I cannot even fathom that!”

  “Of course I’m kidding you; I wouldn’t tell you if she was!”

  “Okay, good!”

  “She was dancing and having a good time though, shocked the heck out of me. She was way more fun than those other two stiffs we were with.”

  “Well, I’m glad you guys had fun, even if I couldn’t be there.”

  “You realize I’m going to need you to come dancing with us in Miami, yes?”

  “Well, since I’ll be your cabana boy, I don’t see that being an issue.”

  “Oooh, are you going to wear tight white shorty-shorts for me!?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I tip really well, you know.”

  “I know you do.”

  God, I just loved that man.

  Chapter Nine

  That next week the three of us threw ourselves into planning our Miami trip. Matt was researching flights for both Brooke and me (but not for himself) and putting together lists of his favorite places down there. I didn’t think too much of it at first because he often made his flight plans at the last minute, depending on whatever meetings he had that week. The trip was still over a month away, and Brooke hadn’t even mentioned it to Travis yet.