I knew that Eric practiced with the elderly members, so I trusted him not to kill me with deadly serves. I must admit that, at first, I wasn't enchanted with Eric. I was still captivated by the charms of Dror. At the beginning of my high school senior year, I significantly reduced my hours at Bnei Akiva. On the other hand, my number of hours playing tennis increased during my last year in high school due to my dream of being an army sports instructor. I was certainly an anomaly in that tennis club. While most women and girls would come in short skirts and sexy tops, especially Eric's female students, I was still a religious high school student and a Bnei Akiva apprentice, so I wore modest tracksuits when I was training. I came to the club wearing long swinging skirts, which I made sure to change back into immediately after working out.
This modesty apparently fascinated Eric. He often prolonged my lessons and often joined me in hours of practice and training free of charge. I was young and ignorant and if not for Rivka, the club’s secretary and owner's wife, I would never have ‘found’ Eric.
One day I was in the office with Rivka. I was settling my bill and booking sessions for the next month. One of Eric's students entered the room to borrow a racquet because she had forgotten hers. She was a woman of about fifty, and she was a very nice woman, but she was appallingly dressed. She wore a fluorescent pink skirt with a matching skimpy top - a suitable outfit – maybe – for girls in their early twenties, but certainly not a woman her age. She asked Rivka to hurry up because her lesson with Eric had already started.
"Funny," Rivka grinned as the lady left the room.
"What's funny?" I asked, but I knew she was talking about her shocking outfit.
"Her get-up," Rivka said without lifting her eyes from the board.
I smiled and tried to give the lady some credit. "At least she has a pretty good figure."
"She has a great body," Rivka said bitterly, "but all her efforts are ridiculous." Rivka lifted her head, and I looked at her without comprehension.
"You’ve no idea what I'm talking about," she said, giving me a sly smile.
"No..."
"She and all of Eric's other students are performing somersaults in order to get him to notice them, but he’s in love with someone else."
"Who?" I was excited because I wasn’t used to being party to club gossip. I usually only discovered things long after they had happened, such as a romance between two friends at the club that had led to a divorce).
"With you, silly!" she laughed.
I was shocked. I hadn't even noticed.
"He told you?" I asked innocently.
"No," she replied and added, "but he doesn't have to. That fellow just stares at you with dreamy eyes."
I smiled and she continued. "You think he gives free lessons like this to everyone?" I gaped in astonishment. "The guy needs every penny for tuition and rent, but he always finds excuses to be around you. The nice thing is that some of the women invest hours in dressing and grooming while you come dressed in your long and unattractive dresses and get all the attention."
Instinctively, I looked in the mirror behind me. I didn't understand what Eric saw in me. I felt I wasn't so appealing, what with my wild hair and sweaty tracksuit.
Rivka observed me and said in an anguished tone, "Oh, the innocence of youth..."
I was lost in my fantasies of Dror, who didn't notice my existence and saw me as a counselor and nothing more. And now I had discovered that the object of the female members’ desires was in love with me.
Almost overnight, I stopped dreaming of Dror and Eric became the main hero of my daydreams.
Suddenly I ‘discovered’ Eric, even though I had known him at the club for nearly a year-and-a-half. Before any lesson with him, my heart pounded, and the few times Eric canceled and sent a replacement coach, I made great efforts to hide my disappointment. I didn't want to be like all of Eric’s other fans. Although Rivka was convinced that Eric was desperately in love with me, I wasn’t sure.
I was a religious girl from a good home, and he was probably a shy guy. Of course, there were lots of hints and glances, but nothing concrete happened. In my fantasies, he would have picked me up in his muscular arms, pressed me against one of the club’s walls and given me a juicy kiss, or done more than kissing. I didn't dare or even know how to fantasize about him, but in the mundane reality of my life, the height of any relationship between us occurred during Passover of 1992.
I was at the end of my senior year in high school, and my final exams were coming up. One of the regulars from the club had a birthday, so I stayed after practice to celebrate with everyone. The atmosphere was good, and I didn't notice it was late and that the buses had stopped for the night. My mother called in a panic, of course, and Haim, the club owner, promised her that he would personally ensure I returned home safely. Eric jumped at the opportunity and volunteered to take me home. Of course, I couldn't resist, and I sneaked a look at some of his admirers, who were watching me with angry looks. I smiled and slipped into Eric's old Fiat.
All the way home, I was just delirious with excitement. Except for giving Eric directions to my house, I couldn't utter a word. He didn't say much himself. As I recall, he mainly tried, without success, to lecture me about how important final exams were and not to underestimate them like he had done and how terrible it was to complete matriculation after the army.
When we got to my parents’ house, Eric stopped the car, but I couldn't get out. I felt something was going to happen, but didn't know what, and worse, I didn't know what I should do.
Eric released his seatbelt and helped me to release my own. I used to avoid contact with boys, so I let him release my belt without our hands touching. He looked at me and smiled. His huge brown eyes glowed in the dark. His smile was just perfect. I wanted desperately to kiss him, but didn't know how.
"You're very beautiful," he said.
"I don't think so," I said honestly.
"This is the nicest thing about you: you’re not at all aware of how beautiful you are."
He stopped for a minute and then continued. "If you weren’t so religious and so young..." He stopped himself and I was shocked. I didn't know what to say or what to do. In retrospect, I have no doubt that if this conversation was taking place today, knowing what I know now, or even a few months later, when I was an officer in the army, we’d have finished it with a passionate kiss and even more than that. I’d have explained to him that the age difference was not so much, and that I was not so religious. But at that point in my life, all I could do was smile shyly at him, thank him for the ride and run inside. When I think about it, I'm still mad at him. We could have created an atomic bomb from the sexual tension that existed between us, and as he was the experienced adult, he should have done something with it and not waited for me, a young and religious virgin, to take the crucial first step.
After the ride, Eric continued to melt me with his looks, and I did nothing but daydream about him.
I was supposed to join the army in August 1992 for their sports instructors’ course. A month and a half before my enlistment, during a tennis match, I sprained my ankle. I was playing against another girl at the club. She was more or less at my skill level. Eric was watching the game, and I was eager to show him my abilities. I ran around the court like crazy and in one little, careless moment, I twisted my ankle and sprained it. Luckily, it was a few days after my last matriculation, because I was grounded for a week. I let out a blood-curdling scream. Eric jumped out of his seat and ran to me. He picked me up and carried me to the club office. I needed to see an orthopedist, and he ran me to the ER. My mom was waiting for me there. Despite her hysterical concern over me, Mom thanked Eric politely and sent him away. I wanted Eric to stay with me and take care of me, but I couldn't overrule my mom.
Two days later, some friends came to visit me at the club. We sat in a circle, and Eric sat next to me. We talked and laughed. Someone told a very crude joke, and everyone laughed uproariously except me. Haim smiled at m
e and said, "Sharon, you can laugh too," while Eric patted my shoulder and said with an embarrassed smile, "She didn't understand the joke." I smiled sheepishly. I did understand the joke. I just didn’t find it funny. But, of course, I couldn't say a word because the touch of his hand on my shoulder paralyzed me. Eric probably thought I was a lot more innocent than I was.
The army agreed to postpone my enlistment by six months in order for me to recover enough to train to be a sports instructor, but I didn't want to miss an academic year, so I eventually joined the IDF, the Israel Defense Force, in October 1992 for basic training.
During the basic training for female officers, thinking about Eric helped me pass the difficult hours. By May 1993, I was an administrative officer and stationed at a base near home, so I was able to workout at the club.
Eric was no longer there. He had finished school and found a job as an engineer in Haifa.
My dreams of him became memories that had dimmed with time.
A year later, by the spring of 1994, I was a lieutenant and had had a bleak little experience with some French Jew named Morris, who claimed to be in love with me after three dates, but didn't bother to send me a single letter after returning to Paris. I was, by then, more open and mature. I stopped going to the club wearing modest clothes and started to wear more flattering outfits while working out. Though they were still not as revealing as those worn by many other girls at the club.
A few days after Independence Day, I went into the club office to cancel a training. Rivka gave me a meaningful smile, pointed to a guy sitting with his back to the entrance and said, "Sharon, look who's here."
Eric turned to me… and my heart missed a beat. I thought I’d forgotten all about him, but I was dead wrong. I was wearing short white shorts and a tight green shirt. Despite the chill outside, my body was tinged with a light sweat after working out. I felt Eric swallow me with his look. He just looked me up and down and finally blurted out, "Sharon, how you've grown up!" I don't think I’d grown an inch since the last time I’d seen him. I’d reached my full height of 5ft 7in by about the age of seventeen, but I guess it was his clumsy way of telling me that I looked good. Millions of thoughts ran through my head, but one thing was clear: I was done with the games!
While Rivka was bragging about me and my extensive military career, and while I planned how I was going to kiss Eric the second he left the club, a short fat girl came in. Before I realized what was happening, she smiled at me, said hello with a heavy Russian accent and sat down next to Eric. It took me a while, but eventually I realized that the girl was Marina, Eric's wife, and she wasn't fat. She was nine months pregnant! A year and a half was enough for Eric to settle down in Haifa, to get to know the secretary of the department in which he worked, marry her and now, how harmonious, they were waiting for their first offspring.
"I had to pee," Marina apologized and stroked her swollen stomach. "The baby sits right on my bladder all the time."
I sat down, and it seemed to me that Rivka realized I was a little dizzy and offered me a glass of water.
Eric apologized for disconnecting from the club. He worked very hard and was also organizing a three-year relocation to the Netherlands for his company. He met Marina at work; otherwise there was no chance that he would have met someone. They dated for six months and got married seven months ago in a small ceremony at city hall. Rivka and I exchanged glances. At least we understood why they’d been in a hurry to get married. They’d come to say goodbye before leaving.
I looked at Marina closely. She was more or less the same age as Eric, who was almost thirty now. She had straight blond hair, was thin aside from her belly, had a flat nose and sad, green eyes. She was not beautiful, but was quite pleasant looking. I envied them both.
Apart from our eye color, I didn't have anything in common with Marina, and I began to suspect that maybe it was all in my head. Maybe Eric hadn’t been interested in me after all. Otherwise, how could I explain the fact that he married a woman so different from me?
"You need a ride?" Eric asked when he and Marina arose.
I forced a smile. "I already have a license."
"How time flies." Eric smiled at Rivka as if he were a proud parent, and I felt even smaller and dumber.
I went with Eric and Marina to the parking lot. Eric had exchanged his battered Fiat for a new family car. I watched Eric help Marina get into the car, and I imagined it was me.
That was the last time I saw Eric.
Six months later, I met Itay. Except for the fact that they are both electrical engineers, there is nothing in common between the two. When I think about it, the fact that Marina was so different from me didn’t really prove anything. Eric was, and remains, my masculine ideal.
I admit that, as the years have passed by, I barely remember his face, but the ‘relationship’ between us, if you could call a few glances full of desire ‘a relationship,’ was still seared in my heart.
Itay, who by all accounts is a very handsome guy, doesn't look like him at all. And Hanoch, whom I’d imagined to be a lost twin of Eric, was light years away.
CHAPTER 7
The main insight that I had from my fleeting encounter with Hanoch was that, despite all the excitement, it was better and safer for me in the padded and sleepy relationship I had with Itay.
When I came home from the park, Itay and the girls hadn't returned yet. I changed into a comfortable outfit and tidied the house. I decided to be a good wife, like Hila.
At ten that night, Itay called me from the parking lot and asked me to help him take the girls to their beds. They’d both fallen asleep in the car on the way home. We put our two princesses in their beds, and my heart was bursting with love. How could I even think of destroying all this magic? I looked at Itay; he seemed tired. I approached him and gave him a big kiss on the cheek.
"Sorry," I whispered to him. "I overreacted a little bit."
Itay pulled me out to the living room, smiled gently and asked me if I’d gotten some rest.
"Yes."
"That was my intention," he said. "I knew you were exhausted and wanted to give you a quiet day."
I’d married a good guy. No doubt about that, I thought.
"I'm dead tired," he declared. "I'm going to shower."
I admit that, despite all the drama between us, for a moment I still expected him to take on some of the blame for our fight, but I realized that there are some battles you can't win.
I heard the shower running and decided to surprise Itay. I quickly undressed and got into the shower with him. Itay was surprised, but devoted himself to my touch in seconds.
Although fatigued, we embraced each other passionately. It was just great, and, in the morning, Hanoch was further away than ever.
The second holiday fell on Friday, and we spent a magical weekend with the girls. On Friday, we had a picnic by the sea. In the evening, we went to my parents’. My brothers weren't there, so we had their full attention. The girls stayed overnight with my parents, and Itay and I enjoyed another lusty night.
In the morning, we went for a romantic breakfast in Tel Aviv, and we decided we deserved a vacation. The Jewish holiday of Sukkot that year was superior in terms of holidays; we had a week and a half off of work. We debated whether to take the girls or not and finally decided to go alone.
We booked tickets for a long weekend in Paris. I hadn't been to Paris for many years. The last time was seven years ago, when I went there with Itay to celebrate passing my law exams. We had a feeling Paris would be the most romantic choice and we were not wrong.
We flew out on Wednesday morning and returned on Monday afternoon. We had five nights of ecstasy.
I have no idea what we enjoyed more: the romantic trips; the fine dining; the fact that, once again, we were a childless couple with no concerns or making love almost every night. Actually, it didn’t matter. It was all great.
Itay was a little disappointed that I was careful to take my pills. He hoped that a romantic
holiday would make me want to have another child, preferably a son. But even with all this love and romance, I couldn’t forget that the person who bore most of the burden of daily life was me, and the truth was that I’d started to enjoy the fact that our girls were now a little older and more independent.
We talked a lot during our holiday, especially about our existence as a family unit and Itay’s crazy work hours. He explained to me that he was no different from the other engineers in his department, who also had a lot of responsibilities, and he couldn’t clock out when it was convenient for him. Because I knew Itay, I knew that he didn't spend that time playing. He went to work to work, as opposed to all kinds of people at The Marker Café, for example, who spent many hours chatting during their work days. He was a thorough guy and also a little slow. I decided to support him more and he resolved to come home at least once a week at a reasonable hour. I’d recently noticed a belly dancing course that was running at the town hall every Tuesday at seven pm, and in order to get there in time, I’d have to leave the house at six thirty. Itay was a bit overwhelmed with my choice of belly dancing as a pastime, but I already had a complete fantasy going on about dancing a sensual dance for him. I concluded that thrills could also be found in our home.
When we returned, happy and more in love than ever, from Paris, the girls were ecstatic over the variety of gifts we’d brought them, and within minutes they forgot their longing for us and were busy convincing us to go on another trip so they’d get more gifts.
We returned on Monday, and we still had almost another full week of freedom with the girls. We took a trip to Jerusalem, went to the movies and to an amusement park - entertainment around the clock. It was pure bliss.
The girls sensed that something good had happened between their parents. They often hugged and kissed us, and stayed close.
Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 4
