The Other Other Woman

by Mallory Lockhart

  “Hey, Mal!”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “You having a good day?”

  “So far. You?”

  “Well, I just had a super annoying conversation with Sylvia LeBlanc. Do you know her?”

  “Only enough to know that she’s super annoying. I saw you messing up trades all over the place. What are you doing?”

  “That was just commission adjustments. So, this Sylvia chick was so rude to me just now.”

  “She’s in Asset Management, right?” I asked. “What did she do?”

  “I was trying to open up a new account and she starts yelling at me telling me that I had the clients sign an old version of the fee contract, right?”

  “Yeah…?”

  “So I told her I got it off their department’s website so I assumed it was the right one.”

  “Uh huh…”

  “And then she chastises me, telling me that I should know better than to trust the website and should have looked at the date!”

  “Okay…”

  He was getting all feisty again. I kind of loved that. “But then… She sends the link to the correct one, right? And it’s the SAME stupid version I gave her!”

  “Oh, that’s typical,” I responded, laughing.

  “Well she didn’t even call me back to apologize once I showed her!”

  “Did you really expect her to?!” I was still giggling. I mean, if I expected an apology every time someone got a little irritated with me…

  “Yes! She was totally rude to me. I think I’m going to call Ron Lassiter about it.”

  “Wait… Are you serious, Matt?”

  “Yeah, why not? We can’t have people like that around here! I’m her customer!”

  “What do you think he’s going to do?”

  “Well, I’m not going to ask him to fire her or anything.”

  I dropped the phone and starting laughing. Loudly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ve gone mad with power!” I replied, still laughing. “What if her cat just died or something? She didn’t say anything that bad to you, did she? Sheesh, man! But it’s good to know that you think you can just get people fired with one phone call, you butthead.”

  “So now I’m a butthead?!”

  “Well, I dunno. Are you going to get me fired for calling you one?”

  “I just might!” he laughed. “Okay, but really, she can just talk to me like that and you don’t think I should say anything?”

  “No way! If you are that upset about it, tell her you thought she overreacted. Or possibly her supervisor if you feel the need. But don’t call someone who is like six levels above her boss! He’s going to be like, ‘WHO?!’”

  “Well, still…”

  “I’ll tell you what; you want me to break her legs for you? I’ll do it, you just say the word. She’s just downstairs…”

  “Okay, fine,” he huffed. “I’ll try to let it go.”

  “Yes, please try, dear.” I was still shaking my head. “You are too much.”

  “Oh, by the way, you never gave me your address, you know,” he said.

  “Ahh, sorry, I totally forgot. I’ll text it to you in a minute.”

  “Ok, good. You have any big weekend plans?”

  “Not so far. But Nate got himself an apartment, so he says pretty soon he’ll be able to start taking them overnight.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, he wants to try to make a go of the split custody thing. So, basically he will have them about as much as I do. We’ll switch every few days and then alternate weekends.”

  “You think they will be okay over there with him?”

  “Yeah, I do. He’s come a long way. He has a girlfriend now and seems to be doing okay. He’s buying them bunk beds and trying to make it nice for them over there. I think they’ll like the novelty of it at first if nothing else.”

  “Wow. That would be really cool if you could have that much free time.”

  “Yeah, I know. It would be nuts.”

  “You deserve a break.”

  “Tell me about it. This is sort of how I pictured it,” I explained. “We’ve always been good friends, so I hoped once we got past the ugly parts we’d be able to co-parent them without too much problem.”

  “Sounds great, sweetie. I really hope he can finally get it together.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Once we were off the phone, I texted him my address before it slipped my mind.

  Address: 2820 Linden Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27601–Just what are you sending? I was sure to add in a picture from the Justin Timberlake “D*ck in a Box” skit from “Saturday Night Live.” A clever touch, I thought.

  He responded: LMAO. Well, something a little less ostentatious.

  Bummer. I replied.

  The conference was in just a few weeks so the planner in me was going crazy, not to mention my hormones. I at least wanted to know if I should plan on seeing him in the biblical sense or not. It had been way too long, and by this point I was about to start flipping through the yellow pages for male escort services. Okay, it wasn’t that dire, but still. I missed him and I missed THAT with him more than anything. I was unable to sleep, just thinking about it all the time. I sent him a text that Saturday morning.

  Hey you, we haven’t talked about “us” in a while. As you know, my brain works in mysterious ways. So I was thinking about you this morning and now I’m curious. Are we still friends, more than friends, mortal enemies or what? What are we these days?

  He quickly replied: Mortal enemies of course. Call me K2! LOL. Come on, you know we are great friends, probably heading to much more than that again at the conference. I’ve appreciated you not asking about it all the time. I had an interesting conversation with the wife NY eve that I will relay to you soon.

  Oh for the love, why does everything have to be “soon?” Why so mysterious? Why couldn’t he just tell me now?

  “Maybe he’s Batman,” my mom said dryly.

  I continued typing: Ok, good. I just want to make sure that there are still feelings there on your part. You know I say I don’t care about your situation, but I just mean it doesn’t change the way I feel, not that I don’t care about you or your situation. I can’t wait to get my hands on you again, to be perfectly honest.

  Love honesty!! was his reply.

  And then, about an hour later, I got: How do you cook asparagus?

  Weirdo.

  By Monday morning, we were both in good moods. I was feeling so much better about us, knowing that we were going to be together again in just three weeks. I was happy to hear his chipper voice just after the market opened.

  “Good morning!”

  “Morning, babe. What’s up?”

  “Two things… First, did you see NFLX is above $100? Also, you should receive some mail at your home today.”

  “Oh, wow, no, I hadn’t looked at the market yet. What to do… what to do…?”

  “Sell, baby! Sell!”

  “No way, I want to make actual money on this thing!”

  “Well, don’t ride it all the way down again,” he warned.

  “I know, I know,” I replied. I had, in fact, rode it down a number of times. “Hey, speaking of mail, my dress should be delivered today to go with my ridiculously hot shoes.”

  “Oh, sweet! You going to make a big splash with a red dress and tall heels?”

  “Well, it’s not red, but it’s a deep plum. Hopefully, that won’t be a problem for you when you are ripping it off of me?”

  “Definitely not a problem.”

  “Good!” I said. “What are you going to wear?”

  “I told you! A rubber band for my hair!”

  “Don’t you dare, Matthew.”

  He was laughing like a maniac.

  “I’m not kidding! I’m bringing scissors. If I see any ponytails in the room, from my mouth to God’s ear I will cut that shit, do you hear me?”

  More laughing.

  “In
fact,” I added, “get Molly or Brooke to take a pic from the back. I need to see this length in advance.”

  “Okay, hang on. Hey, Molly!” I could hear her giggling at him asking her to take a picture. It came through on my cell a minute later.

  Molly took this, not bad, huh?

  I winced. It was so long. And mostly coarse and black. I thought he would have more gray, but it was so dark. That was probably why he liked it. It covered his ears almost completely, coming down the back past the collar on his shirt in a cascade of thick black swirls. It looked ridiculous.

  “Oh my God. Babe… I… I just…”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, huh?” he chuckled.

  “I’m sure it makes a lovely home for woodland creatures. However, you are covering up an erogenous zone right there above your ear. I can’t put my lips on that hot mess!”

  “And it’s a real pain to wash and dry,” he added.

  “Hmm. Okay, so it’s a pain to deal with AND I like it short so I can run my fingers through it while doing absolutely filthy things to your body. Yeah… you’d better keep it long.”

  “Well, if you say so…”

  “You suck.”

  More laughter.

  As promised, another gift card from Nordstrom arrived in the mail that afternoon, along with my beautiful plum silk dress from Ann Taylor. It fit perfectly and all I needed was a good strapless bra to hoist the girls up and give them a little oomph. I bet Nordstrom had those.

  When I was doing my trade review the next day I asked him to explain his rationale for buying a certain junk bond, not realizing the account was actually run by a separate money management company and not him. He was quick to point out my error in an email. So I sent him a text.

  Will you need a formal written apology on your desk or have you already called Ron Lassiter on me?

  I have not decided the best route to punish you. #creativity

  LOL, as long as it doesn’t involve seafood…

  No, but there may be eating involved…

  By the way, some nice fella sent me a Nordstrom gift card. I hope I get the chance to properly thank him.

  Me too.

  Oh my gosh… To have him flirting with me again! I was in heaven.

  “Don’t go there again, Mal.” Everyone was saying it. My mother, Jules, Brooke. They were all warning me not to get sucked in by him again, but it wasn’t like I had ever stopped. He could still stop me dead in my tracks without even trying. Brooke told me she felt like he was just being sweet again so he could get me in the sack at the conference and then go back to the same shit/different day routine once he was back home. “I just feel like he’s playing cat and mouse,” she said. “I bet he probably has a woman in every state he travels to, to keep him company when he’s in town and that’s it.”

  “But it’s not like he travels to North Carolina on business regularly.”

  “No,” she pointed out, “but he does go at least twice a year… for the annual conference and to see what’s their face in Burlington.”

  “So, you think he’s putting up with having to text me and talk to me all the time just so he can sleep with me twice a year?! He didn’t even do that last time he was here, Brooke. Believe me, I would have been all over it!”

  “I don’t know, Mal, he’s just different now… or maybe I’m just seeing him for who he really is. I don’t trust him and I don’t believe he is ever leaving his wife. He’s like one of those guys… what do you call them? Those people who don’t think rules apply to them… social? No socio! That’s it. He’s like a sociopath!”

  “Brooke, do you need to tell me something?” I asked nervously.

  “No… I don’t know anything. I just don’t know about him anymore. I really thought I did. Every time he leaves the office now, I suspect he’s up to no good. Every woman we run into or that shows up at an event, I assume he’s fucking her. Or trying to.”

  “But you would tell me if you did… need to tell me something… right?”

  “Of course I would, dummy! Like I said, it’s no one in particular, just in general,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know that feeling well,” I agreed.

  “Although I did see him giving his number to the bartender at Strip.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, they were talking about wine so I don’t know if he was telling her he would get her a certain kind or what, but she’s always making eyes at him when we go there.”

  “Oh, great. Well, you and I both know all it takes is a text.”

  “Yeah, but this girl’s got this big round face. She can’t be more than 23. He probably just likes the attention.” adding sarcastically, “You know he loves putting on a show, making people think he’s Mr. Wonderful.”

  It wasn’t like this was the first time I had heard about him flirting with women. Long before we got together I knew how incredibly charismatic he could be, but the way she hesitated and just how bitter she was toward him now had me very worried. She wasn’t even dating him, and she seemed more upset with him than I was. It made me wonder just what was she seeing in him every day that I wasn’t.

  “Oh, and before I forget,” she said, “I know we talked about you coming down the last weekend in January, since you don’t have the kids. But I completely forgot that it’s our anniversary and Travis is PISSED that I didn’t remember.”

  “I thought he was going out of town for the Reserves?”

  “He was, but I guess he changed it once he realized what weekend it was.”

  “Oh, well, it’s no biggie. I can come down another time. Matt is supposed to be in Florida anyway so it’s not like I would have been able to see him either. The conference is the next week. So we’ll all see each other there.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s true.”

  I had been trying to get down to visit her since Christmas. Since this would be the first entire weekend my kids were spending at their dad’s apartment, I wanted to stay busy and to take advantage of the free time. So I was happy when she texted me later that week to tell me that Travis changed his mind and actually wanted me to come down and stay at their house. I called her right away. “Say what, now?”

  “Yeah, that’s what he said.” She sounded as surprised as me.

  “Who is this man and what did he do with Travis?”

  Travis still didn’t know me at all, but he was not a fan. He liked to joke with her that she and I were lesbian lovers the way we were up each other’s butts on the phone all the time. I preferred to think of her as more like the sister I never had. Either way, he didn’t like it.

  “I don’t know, girl. We’ve been fighting over what to do about my job and moving lately and he’s trying to get back in my good graces,” she explained. “He’s got all this stuff planned for us–massages, horseback riding, and going to see some comedy show–and he wants you to come with us.”

  I was nearly speechless. “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “I couldn’t believe it myself, so you better get down here before he changes his mind! He’s even getting his sister to come down and watch the kids.”

  “That’s silly. I can watch them while you guys go out.”

  “Nope, it’s a done deal. He wants you to go with us. He probably figures I’ll have more fun with you, and that will make me nicer to him,” she laughed.

  “Well, I can’t argue with him there.”

  The next week, there were still no changes in Matt’s life. My frustration with him, admittedly, was growing once again. I had to press him to tell me about this so-called “interesting” conversation he had had with his wife. It sounded like it was a whole lot of nothing. They had talked about whether or not they were going to stay together in the new year and whether or not she was going to “spend more time” in Miami with him. He still had yet to acknowledge that he was even moving there full- time. So what the hell did I care what she did? I knew that we were going to be due for another Come to Jesus meeting soon, but under the circumstances, I was
n’t about to do anything that might jeopardize our time together at the conference.

  There were some flirty exchanges via text, initiated by me, of course. Just trying to make sure we were still on the same page now that I had a spectacular outfit picked out and had made hotel arrangements. I would be sharing a room with Brooke, but I did not plan on actually staying in there with her, obviously.

  Gm how’s life? Churning through emails? he asked.

  Nah, just trade review, drinking coffee and thinking.

  Am I supposed to ask what you are thinking about?

  Only if you want to know I suppose, I replied.

  Well if it’s good, I do. If not, I don’t know, especially if it’s about me.

  Well, I have definite concerns about seeing you at the conference.

  Okay, well I’m pretty busy till 3:30, you want to talk afterwards?

  Primarily, thin hotel walls. This is very concerning. I added, also, will you be able to handle the hotness? So very concerning.

  LOL, oh okay, I understand.

  But yes, we can talk about it later if you like. Did you think I was going to get all heavy on you?

  Ahh, well maybe.

  Nope, today is your lucky day. But I would like a picture please. I need to make sure you are still good lookin’ enough for me.

  My request was ignored. As was the afternoon phone call that I had been receiving once again. But he did get back to me later that evening. Sorry we were so busy this afternoon, catch up tomorrow, okay?

  No problem, you heading to MIA for the rest of the week?

  Yep, leave early in a.m. but back on Friday.

  Well, damn. I didn’t think I would see him until the conference. I knew he couldn’t get away for very long on weekends, and I was staying at Brooke’s house anyway. But now I was excited at the possibility of getting a couple of smooches in.

  Oh I figured you were staying. I’m most likely coming down to ATL for the weekend, so maybe you should stay in MIA! LOL