What Doesn't Kill You

by Virginia DeBerry

  Naturally, the road to and from our hometowns led us directly to the Ex Vortex—not a place I visited often. I mean, with the exception of our game of Can You Top This at Amber’s wedding, he was ancient history—a relic from the past, long since chalked up to being young and dumb—oh yeah, and in love.

  Then Toni said, “My friends told me I was crazy to let Gerald have the house, but—”

  I didn’t hear what she said after that because “Gerald” was clanging in my head like a fire alarm. My grip tightened on the burger that was halfway to my mouth. Gerald? My throat started to close and my heart revved up to NASCAR speed. She couldn’t have said Gerald. I mean, it wasn’t like Horatio, but it wasn’t the most common name either. And if she did actually say it, she couldn’t mean my Gerald. Yes, he lived in Princeton, but his wife was named Annie. I didn’t know Toni’s last name; she didn’t know mine. They hadn’t come up.

  This had to be some freaky coincidence, but the sweat mustache grew on my upper lip and wet rings circled my armpits. All I could do was dig my fingers deeper into the bun. There were lots of black families in Princeton—well, maybe not lots, but there was definitely more than one black man named Gerald in the whole damn town. Wasn’t there? Besides, who said her husband was black? Since Toni didn’t seem to have noticed my state of paralysis and perspiration, I eased myself back from the ledge. I wanted to pick up my glass in the worst way, but I was afraid my hand wasn’t steady enough to make it to my lips without spillage, so I settled for unhanding my burger.

  And she kept talking—said when she was younger she saw life as an adventure, full of possibilities. “And I let him suck the life right outta me,” she said. Her ex saw caution lights and police tape: safe was the ultimate goal. Once their kids—all three of them—were grown and gone, she wanted to shake things up. He still wanted meatloaf every Tuesday. She took a trip to the Galapagos and Machu Picchu without him, came down from the mountain, found a lawyer and left him with his ground beef.

  But my Gerald was not divorced. So this was some other Gerald.

  It had to be.

  Then this couple who was being shown to a table stopped by us, grinning. She clamped Toni’s arm and said, “Annie?! It’s been ages!!” Annie. The minute I heard it, I knew I was headed over the cliff. Our visitors started into their sympathy speech about how they had heard about “the divorce”—the woman actually whispered the word and lowered her eyes when she said it. But they must not have seen me free-falling, because they kept talking like everything was fine. Toni introduced me, they nodded and went right back to their condolences, which was swell with me ’cause I was dizzy and felt like I was going to toss my dinner.

  After her friends were gone, Toni explained that only people from the old Trenton neighborhood and Gerald called her Annie—said she always hated it. When she reclaimed herself she decided Antoinette, her name, was a mouthful, but thought Toni might be a fit.

  She poked fun at her friends, “Acting like getting divorced is something to be ashamed of—like going to jail.”

  Something to be ashamed of? What, like laying up with somebody else’s husband? I was terrified of what might come out of my mouth, so I still hadn’t done much more than nod. I thought hearing what my backbiting friends had to say about me made for a bad day. But there I was with this woman I liked—she was smart and funny and had rescued me from my frienmies. The only rub—I’d been having an affair with her husband for the last twelve years. I wanted to run, but you can’t get far in the middle of the ocean. Did she suspect Gerald had a side dish? I had always wondered. If she did, it wasn’t part of the story she told, and she didn’t seem to have a whiff it was me.

  But for the first time in those dozen years I truly became the other woman, and I felt guilty—and ashamed. There were lots of other things I’d felt during that time—annoyed, disappointed and inconvenienced among them—but I had been a pro at sidestepping the guilt thing. His wife was his life, not mine.

  Now, I hadn’t lost my whole mind, so I was not about to fess up, but somehow it didn’t seem right for her to be treating me to dinner.

  Then Toni noticed I hadn’t said anything, or moved, or that I was green, or that my uneaten burger had puncture wounds—I don’t know what finally got her attention, but she asked if I was alright. I mumbled something about not feeling well; it seemed to be my theme song for the day. I managed to get myself through the meal, bowed out of the main event and wobbled back to my cabin.

  Well, just damn. That changed about everything. I was completely disgusted with myself—for about an hour I took the beating my conscience dished out, because I deserved it. I replayed everything Toni had said, what I had said, looking for—I don’t know, absolution, forgiveness? It’s OK, Tee, you’re still a good person. But I didn’t find any. Then I had an epiphany.

  Gerald was divorced and he never said one mumbling word.

  The son of a bitch had been in my face, in my house, lying to me for the last two years—not directly, but by default. I was outraged—thinking about his clothes in my drawer and how I folded them just so. And I fixed him meatloaf. This is not how I expected to be bonding with Toni…Annie…whatever her name was. I wanted to pick up that ship-to-shore phone and tell him what a lowdown, miserable slug he was—something he’d clearly already made peace with. It wasn’t worth my ten dollars a minute to tell him. Besides, I needed to look him in his face and say…I don’t know what, but something that would peel paint off the walls would come out.

  And since somebody needed a piece of my mind, I decided to vent on my so-called friends. Every night had ended at Sky Bar, so it was a pretty good guess that whatever show they’d seen, they would turn up there sooner or later. All I had to do was wait. And maybe it was because I wanted them to see I wasn’t quite on the bread line, or maybe I was just feeling contrary, but I ordered a bottle of champagne and five glasses. I was on my second when they showed up, singing, “Evil, running through my veins…” Could it be more perfect?

  They actually acted happy to see me, all concerned about how I was feeling. I filled their glasses and played it off like whatever had been ailing me left as mysteriously as it had arrived. The more they yakked, critiquing the show, what people had on, the more I could see that was all we had ever done—talk about stuff that didn’t matter and each other. We trashed Diane’s “just add a can of cream of mushroom soup” culinary efforts and her plastic-flower arrangements. We had plenty to say about why Joyce’s husband had headed for the exit. And we had gone to town on Marie and her gag-me grandkids. So why was I pissed off because they did the same thing to me? Because hearing it hurt my feelings, like when Mary Marshall told the whole fifth-grade class that I was the only girl who didn’t wear a bra yet. That sounded lame. You know what? It hurt, but Mary was right. Given a little time, I more than made up for that shortfall, just like I would this time.

  So I didn’t bust them, because I got the message. And as far as I was concerned, the Live Five had run its course. Maybe the Fake Four would survive, but I was through. We finished the bottle. We finished The Cruise. And I was finished with them.

  Gerald, however, was another story. I wasn’t done with him yet.

  8

  That’s before my head was forcibly removed from the hole in the sand.

  Every Gerald thought made me madder. Not just angry—mad-dog mad—crazy and foaming at the mouth. Or like mad cow disease—disoriented and unable to walk or think straight. The closer I got to home, the more I could feel myself swell up, like one of those big, butt-ugly lizards with the bumpy skin and the neck that puffs out like a balloon. I don’t know if they’re really mad, but I’d stay the hell away. And I’m sure the man squeezed in the plane seat next to me knew better than to even dream of challenging me for space on the armrest.

  It’s just that in all the time we were…I don’t even know what to call it—dating? Hardly. In a relationship? Clearly not. That implies you tell the other person what’s going on in your life,
and somewhere along the line I lost my priority status. How could he not tell me?! That zipped me right between the eyes, and I think I hip-checked a woman for space at the ladies’-room sink.

  I never realized how much of whatever Gerald and I did involved what he could or couldn’t do—with me or for me—because we had to keep his little secret. OK, big secret. So I never even considered asking him to pick me up from the airport. It would have been nice for the man in my life to help put my luggage in the car, tell me he missed me and take me home. But he couldn’t because how would he explain his Saturday-night absence to Annie? Except that for quite some time now Toni—whom I missed already because we were absolutely not going to get to explore our friendship options—didn’t give a rat’s rump what he did on Saturday or any other day, or night. Except he should have said something to me. Gerald owed me that much.

  Which left me with steam coming out of my ears while I scraped together enough money to take the train to the bus, because I did not have $100 for a cab. I didn’t want to know if Amber and J.J. were still mad at each other, so I wasn’t asking them to pick me up. Really, I had planned to catch a ride with one of my so-called friends, but since the demise of the Live Five, I was on my own. I had a mind to call him while I was waiting on the decidedly nontropical train platform. And I cussed under my breath while dragging a ton of suitcase on and off a bus and down the road to my house in the dark. But I knew I’d need more energy and more wits than I had at the time to speak to him.

  Welcome home.

  Next day I snatched dirty clothes out of my bag, stuffed them in the washer, threw myself in the shower, yanked on some clothes, raked a comb through my hair—sense any hostility? I stayed out of the car because I wanted to hear the engine growl, burn some rubber—bad ideas when the speed limit is thirty-five.

  I let the machine pick up Gerald’s calls because I was not ready to deal with him yet and I was doing this on my time. Everything he said, including “the” and “it,” lit my fire. It was like one of Amber’s fifth-grade science projects. If you focus sunlight through a magnifying glass on a pile of dry leaves, at first you think nothing is happening. Then there’s smoke. If you keep it there long enough, the whole forest is going up in flames.

  Or maybe it’s what he didn’t say that burned me. Stuff like, “I can’t wait to see you.” Or, “I’m finally free. Now it’s just you and me, babe.” News flash—he never said those things, but somehow I heard them, especially the last one. And I couldn’t even tell you if that’s what I wanted, but I deserved the courtesy of being consulted.

  Besides, this was not a phone conversation. And the more I threw, slapped and dragged things around, the more I felt we should have this out at his house for a change. I was feeling the need to come out of the shadows.

  Monday was never one of our days, but it could be now, and the sooner we resolved this some kinda way, the better, because the more I stewed, the more distracted I’d be from really important matters, like finding work. There had been plenty of on-deck networking, but nobody was sending the Gulfstream to whisk me to corporate HQ, and I’d already checked my inbox—nothing promising on the horizon.

  And I wasn’t calling Gerald to make an appointment either. He would just have to deal with me when I got there. So I spent all day prepping because I had to look like the best me I could be—sassy, sun-kissed, full of “I can handle it” spirit, like the first day I walked into that dealership and met him. And I wore the high heels. I had to stand tall.

  Problem was, I wasn’t sure about the climax of this long-running drama. Was I telling Gerald to take a hike? Was I the one making an exit? If that was the case, why hadn’t I done it before? Even his wife had reached the point where she said, “So long, sappy. I have run away.” Why should I stick around for seconds?

  Or was I after a chorus of, “Baby, please don’t go,” complete with the falling-out and the cape? The man was a salesman, but what kind of terms could he offer that would make this deal acceptable?

  So I waited ’til evening. I got the car washed on the way down; it had to look good too. And I made my way to his house for the very first time. Seriously, I’d never sat outside, desperate to see into his life without me. Or even driven past so I could check out his digs from an architectural standpoint. I didn’t need to know if the azaleas were pink or coral, or if it looked like I imagined. His day-to-day hadn’t been real to me, and I’d liked it like that, thank you very much. That’s before my head was forcibly removed from the hole in the sand.

  I circled his block a few times. In my mind, Gerald’s house was bigger, with more land around it. Really, it was rather bland, but that’s neither here nor there. I didn’t see his car, but I pulled right up in the driveway, banged the door closed and marched up the walk. I saw the blinds at the bay window move, imagined what kinda crazy he must have been thinking I was. The door opened before I took my finger off the bell.

  A youngish woman wearing cargo capris and a cap-sleeved tee shirt answered. She had copious amounts of hair that did not start out on her own head, and she flipped it out of her eyes to look at me. I never anticipated his daughter might be there. Hadn’t seen her in ages, maybe since the aluminum bats in the sporting-goods store. That took some of the starch out of my delivery, so I said, “Hey. You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of your father—”

  And she said, “My father lives in Florida.”

  Oh. OK. I was startled but still on my feet. I said I was a friend of Gerald’s. Her expression shifted. It was subtle, just enough to make her look evil, and she said, “You mean my fiancé.”

  That’s when I experienced a flash of blinding clarity. Right then I understood that my ignorance of his divorce was in no way an oversight. It was part of the plan—the way you get a new car but keep the old one around ’cause it’s reliable and it gives you something to knock around in. In an instant I was transported beyond the ugly, uncontrollable outburst into a strange calm, where I could float above the part of myself that wanted to hurt people, Gerald specifically, and focus on what was happening now without burning the house down. So I told Tressy, yes, I did mean Gerald, and I also meant I was more than his friend. She had a right to know what was in the small print.

  Now, in hindsight I realize this could have gotten roll-in-the-mud, hair-pulling, knives-and-guns ugly, just like the stories on the news where you think, Nobody is worth all that. But there wasn’t any hollering, at least not at me. She folded her arms across her chest. This time I saw the ring—punier than I would have expected too. Then she asked me to step inside, fill in the rest of the blanks.

  Even though I never got further than the foyer, it was quite civilized—not tea and crumpets, but she heard me out. You’re supposed to feel better after you confess, but it wasn’t a relief. Stupid and humiliating are words that come to mind, but at this point I was beyond looking for absolution. This was damage control. My shield had turned into a dagger, and it was aimed at me.

  I didn’t drag her through the details, but it was clear that Gerald, with his safe, practical, organized self, had arranged us exactly to his liking. Guess you have to be detail oriented to keep your fiancée from your mistress, and your longtime mistress from your former wife, but now we had all collided.

  Tressy didn’t say much. When I was done, she asked, “Why should I believe you?”

  Good question. I didn’t have a snappy answer. I guess I could have been obsessed with Gerald and created this fantasy where the two of us were meant to be together and I would do anything to make that come true. Or a vindictive, spurned girlfriend who was hellbent on destroying his happiness.

  Yeah, she wasn’t feeling those explanations either.

  To be honest, my lips were moving, but I was in some kind of trance until she opened the door again. As I walked out, she looked at me and said, “You’re pathetic.” That was real.

  9

  Guilt is nothing without someone to share it with?

  My visit with Tressy wa
s a wake-up call, and I was done pushing the snooze button.

  That night I drove home in the slow lane ’cause I felt shaky and dumbstruck, like I’d been hit upside my head which, come to think of it, I had.

  Twelve years and it took less than two hours to de-Gerald my house. Nothing dramatic—no bonfires or power saws. There wasn’t any teary sorting through his sweaters either. I didn’t hold on to the reading glasses he kept in the table on “his” side of my bed. I didn’t take a last whiff of the Grey Flannel aftershave in the medicine cabinet. I just bagged up my dozen years of Gerald trace evidence and dumped it in the trash.

  But it still felt unreal. Maybe because I didn’t have any feedback. When a relationship is over—from divorce, death, defection or mutual decision—don’t you talk about it? Or at least claim you don’t want to talk about it? Aren’t people supposed to bring you cake and comfort, or a bottle of bourbon and join the bitchfest—whatever’s your pleasure? It’s the perfect misery-loves-company opportunity—the more the merrier. When my ex hit the road, I had Olivia and even my parents who were happy to say, “I told you so.” For better or worse, talking about it made it real. But how do you tell somebody your honey is gone when they didn’t know anybody was buzzing around your hive? Which is pretty remarkable if you think about it. All those years and no one knew—except Amber, and she wasn’t about to commiserate.

  Julie and I only shared workplace misery. I hadn’t divulged any mess from the home front, but I thought about calling her. I was pretty sure she would offer a serving of tea and sympathy without judging me—not because what I did wasn’t wrong, but because she didn’t appear to have a sanctimonious bone in her body. Except I always felt like she looked up to me and I didn’t want to risk that, so I kept my business to myself.

  Guilt is nothing without someone to share it with?

  But nothing I did or didn’t do stopped me from being mightily pissed at Gerald, and at myself. Or helped me come to grips with why it hurt so much—hadn’t planned on that. Pathetic.