Midsummer's Eve

by Kitty Margo

  “What are you doing home on a Saturday night, Eve?” He may have asked the question, but it didn’t sound like he cared one way or the other what my answer might be. Couldn’t he at least sound just a little freaking happy to be talking to me!

  “I thought you might be on a date tonight with our buddy, Deebo.”

  But wait! Miracle of miracles! Could he be jealous? If so, it was a pathetic attempt at emoting. I took a deep breath, tried to sound as casual as possible under the circumstances, and took the liberty of embellishing the truth just a little. “I have been on a few dates, but nothing serious.” There was total silence on his end, so I took the opportunity to question him. “Why aren’t you with Chia? I was of the opinion that you two were joined at the hip.” Shoot! Now I was the one sounding jealous and, unlike his, my voice carried the appropriate depth of emotion.

  “I ended that.” He was falsifying information again. “She wasn’t what I wanted, Eve. The girl was trying to get too serious and you, better than anyone else, should know I’m not ready for a commitment.”

  God, he was lying through his teeth! He wanted to get serious and commit to Chia more than he wanted the winning numbers for the next Mega Million Jackpot. I about chewed my tongue off to keep from blurting this out. Not ready for commitment my dimpled ass!

  “Being with her made me realize what I really wanted.”

  The way he spewed this lie might lead one to believe he was referring to me, when we were both painfully aware that wasn’t the case at all.

  “Can I come over and talk to you, Eve?”

  At that moment, I would have given all my worldly possessions just to be in his arms. But I wasn’t blind to the fact that if Adam could be anyplace of his choosing right now, it certainly wouldn’t be with me. He would be joyously ensconced in Chia’s arms, if she weren’t already draped across lover boy Eric like a rebel flag. Somehow the victory wasn’t as sweet anymore.

  “Sure, come on over.” My short-lived joy was being rapidly replaced by miserable defeat.

  He was there before I could comb my hair and apply lipgloss or even consider changing into something sexy. Not that it mattered. I swear the man resembled someone who could just as easily have marched in a funeral procession. Still, when I opened the door I almost collapsed at the sight of him standing on my threshold, just like old times. Somehow, against all odds, I held myself aloof.

  “Can I at least have a hug?” he mumbled, not seeming overly excited at the prospect, but rather pitiful and disheartened.

  “Sure.” He drew me into his arms and I immediately felt safely home again after a long dangerous journey into the abyss. It felt so right to be back in his arms where I belonged. I didn’t want to let go. Ever. Why couldn’t he just love me?

  “I have missed you so much, Eve. You don’t know what I’ve been going through, worrying that I had lost you forever.”

  Not a whole hell of a lot, I would imagine! “When did you find time to miss me, Adam, when you were spending every waking moment with Chia?” Suddenly, thinking back over the months of agonizing pain he alone had caused made me angry enough to spit in his adorable face.

  “I was confused, Eve.” Taking my hand, he led me to the sofa and pulled me down beside him. “I was chasing the wrong dream.”

  I’ll say! How many nights had we sat on this very sofa, when I had erroneously believed the love we felt for each other was equal and would last through eternity?

  “What’s wrong, Adam? You seem fairly depressed.” I was thrilled to the core that he was feeling exactly as I had months ago. Exactly as Lady Wonder had foretold he would feel, in fact.

  “It’s been a rough couple of days, Eve.” His eyes were red and puffy as if he had actually been crying over the floozy and his poor fingernails, which were in even worse shape than mine, had almost been chewed to the nub.

  Well, I just bet it had! What with the ever-randy Chia undulating with Eric on her waterbed and ignoring both him and his phone calls. That wasn’t a good feeling! I should know! He was finally getting a taste of his own medicine and Mary Poppins couldn’t make it go down without choking him.

  “I was just thinking about all the bad choices I’ve made.” He put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close until our faces were only inches apart. His breath carried the ever-present fragrance of Budweiser. “I realize now what a horrible mistake I made, Eve. I should never have cheated on you with Chia.”

  I pulled away from the suffocating nearness of lips that were begging to be kissed. Not far enough! Scooting forward I perched on the edge of the sofa and absently twiddled my thumbs.

  “I made mistakes in the past, Eve. I’ll be the first to admit it. Would you believe me if I told you that when I was with her, I was thinking of you?”

  Not no, but hell no! Great balls of fire! I didn’t think it was possible for him to ever top some of the outrageous lies he had told me. But he just had! I could almost hear Teri’s outraged reaction when I repeated that lie to her. “You will never know how much it pleases me to learn that I crossed your mind during your frequent romps with Chia, Adam. But I’m curious.” Now it was my time to twist the knife a little. “What happened? Did you just decide you didn’t want to see Chia anymore and break it off with her? Why, it must have broken her confused little heart.”

  “Oh, yeah! She cried and screamed and threw a little tantrum, but I ended it with her nonetheless. I just couldn’t take her jealousy and her need to be with me every single day.” He threw his head back on the sofa for emphasis as he tried to persuade me of what a trying ordeal her alleged dumping had been. “To tell you the truth, I was getting tired of her.”

  Truth? Here we go again! “Don’t worry, Adam. There are plenty more Asian women at Castle and Avery. She shouldn’t be too difficult to replace.”

  “I don't want another Asian woman!” Adam turned to me with a maniacal glint shining in his eyes. Good grief, was he on drugs? If so, it was the hard stuff. Talk about a mood swing. He seemed as close to slipping over the edge as I had a few weeks earlier. “I want you, Eve!”

  I realized that I should probably humor him and not agitate him further until he calmed down, but I’ve never really been a shining example of when to hold ones tongue.” How can you sit there and lie with a straight face, Adam?” His vast array of untruths was about to cause me to throw a minor tantrum as well. “You’re only attracted to Asian women. Neither of us can deny that! You can’t make yourself be attracted to someone you’re not. Is sex with them that much better than with an American woman?”

  Then he felt the need to eclipse every lie he had ever told. “No, actually Chia was pretty boring. She had a tendency to just lie there and make me do all the work. She’s not nearly as exciting in bed as you are.”

  The lying bastard! Never had there been born a more compulsive liar! I didn’t scream, talk dirty or perish the thought take it up the rear. For a split second, I wondered if Chia had found him as boring in bed as I had. Maybe it had taken lover boy Eric to bring out the hidden tigress in her. No, that wasn’t the case at all. Even Lady Wonder had mentioned that’s why Adam was so crazy over Chia. The fireworks in the bedroom.

  “I love you, Eve.” He had a forlorn look in his eyes that was almost believable. “Actually, I didn’t think you would date while we were apart.”

  “No, you didn’t.” I picked at a nonexistent hangnail on a perfectly manicured nail. “You expected me to sit around, waiting patiently for you to tire of Chia, and come crawling back.”

  He grabbed my nervous hands and clutched them between his. “Yeah, something like that.” He actually had the nerve to confess it? He was either drunk or had been slipped a vial of truth serum. “I was wrong, Eve.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Would you give me another chance?” With an urgency bordering on desperation he pulled me into his arms. “I promise, you won’t regret it.”

  I will admit to you that being in his arms almost caused me to forgive his past discr
epancies. Never had anything felt more wonderful! It felt so good to be home! However, I was far from convinced as to the authenticity of his murmured declarations of love.

  “I could never trust you again, Adam. You know that! Every day when you left for work I would suspect you were on the prowl again. From what I hear you hit on every Asian female who walks through the door at Castle and Avery.”

  “That’s a lie!” Dropping my hands, he stood and sauntered into the kitchen. A cork popped and he returned with a bottle of Chardonnay and two wineglasses. He filled the glasses with shaking hands and handed one to me.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ve told you people are jealous of me and love to start rumors. Haven’t I told you that all along? If I so much as speak to a girl at work, within minutes the rumors are spreading like wildfire throughout the plant that I’m sleeping with her."

  I moved to stand in front of the fireplace. Mistake. The rug brought unwanted memories scrambling through my brain of the nights during the first couple months of our courtship when we had made love on the rug, leaving me with severe carpet burns on my knees.

  “Eve, give me one more chance!” He moved to stand in front of me, slowly as not to spill his precious wine. He took my glass, placed them both on the mantle and drew me into his arms.

  Why did he insist on having me in his arms, when he knew the position made it impossible for me to think straight?

  “I can earn your trust back, Eve.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I could find another job.”

  Oh! Those words instantly succeeding in grabbing my full and undivided attention. “Adam, you have been employed at Castle and Avery for fifteen years. You aren’t going to find another job that pays as well.” We both knew plants were closing in North Carolina at an alarming rate.

  “I would quit my job tomorrow if it was the only way to get you back.”

  He had me by the shoulders now and unshed tears glistened in his brilliant blue eyes. Oh! I did love a sensitive man who wasn’t afraid to let his emotions show! “You would?” My steady resolve began to melt as quickly as the pumpkin spice scented candle burning on the mantle. “Really?”

  Adam was warehouse supervisor, a status that required years of ladder climbing to achieve. I found it difficult to believe he would leave his job, or the large supply of female Asian employees, for me. That had to mean something! But what? Could it mean that Adam had been doing some deep soul searching? Had he perhaps finally realized that there was more to life than great sex with Asian women?

  “Yes. I will put in my notice Monday.” He held my face to gaze deeply into my tear filled eyes. “I love you, Eve.”

  “Oh, Adam, I love you too!” Every last defense shattered as I fell into his waiting arms and prayed that this time his words could somehow be true. “I never stopped loving you for a second.”

  “Will you give me another chance?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Of course I will, Adam.”

  Then he kissed me and I swallowed bile as I forced myself not to think of where his lips had recently been. He kissed me for several minutes, until I was dripping with desire, then he grabbed the wine bottle and taking my hand led me to the bedroom.

  Let’s just say the encounter skidded downhill from there. No butterflies in the stomach. No tightening of the nether region. No waves of raging passion racing through my veins. Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of feeling at all. But that would all return in time, I was sure. He just had a lot on his mind, plus, he had downed the remaining wine from the bottle before crawling into bed.

  Afterward, Adam kissed me on the cheek, rolled over, and asked me to rub his back until he fell into a restless sleep leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Lady Wonder had it going on. As I lay with my hand on Adam’s shoulder, constantly touching him to assure myself that he was really there, I realized that she hadn’t missed a beat. She had foretold that Adam would call within 3 weeks, after his beloved Chia had fallen head over heels for another man. Eric. “Don’t answer the phone,” she had strenuously cautioned me. “Ignore him.” Thank God, I had ignored her instead.

  It was impossible to ever love another man with the intensity I felt for Adam, so why bother trying? Sliding my hand around to cradle his steadily increasing beer gut, I snuggled contentedly against the warmth of his back and breathed a contented sigh.

  Having a great sex life wasn’t a critical factor for a successful relationship was it? I was 49 and Adam was 44. Naturally we weren’t going to be burning up the sheets every few hours like someone in there 20's. Laughter was the glue that held our relationship together, although I couldn’t really remember the last time I had heard a robust belly laugh from him. Bottom line, I couldn’t live without him, nor did I want to. At long last, I had him lying next to me and felt the pain and hurt of the last couple months slowly fading into oblivion, hopefully never to return. Sighing contentedly, I closed my eyes and slept blissfully even though that darn whippoorwill returned to his new roosting spot on my windowsill.

  The next morning, I awakened feeling all was right with this wonderful world of ours. I wanted to stay cuddled up to Adam and just kiss, well maybe one or two more things, for the better part of the morning. Unfortunately from the look of things, there wouldn’t be sweet kisses or anything else. Not with Adam. He was snoring loudly. I giggled, expecting the ruffled curtains to lift and flutter like they did in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

  I got up to make coffee and channel surfed until I found Joyce Meyer. The woman is a hoot and knows her Bible front to back. I poured a cup of coffee, added French vanilla creamer and sat back in my recliner to listen to Joyce preach the gospel, with a healthy dose of laughter thrown in for good measure. If she weren’t such an outstanding preacher she would make a great comic.

  Adam rolled out of bed around noon, resembling a zombie from one of the Night of the Living Dead movies, with a hangover. He made the motions of going to the kitchen to pour a cup of black coffee without the evidence of a clear focus.

  It was painfully obvious that the haggard man beside me had some heavy stuff on his mind and wasn’t in the mood to convey these thoughts, or any others, to me this morning. Leaning back on the sofa he breathed a heavy sigh with a woeful expression that suggested he might be feeling exactly as I had after catching him with another woman. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a more pathetic sight, except… well… maybe in my own mirror.

  How could he still be thinking of Chia, when he had irrefutable proof that she was with another man? Duh? Who was I to ask such a foolish question? The answer was, evidently the same way I had still yearned for him during his Chia phase. Could he still be in love with her? Was I just someone to pass time with until she tired of Eric? I couldn’t think about that right now. Fiddle dee dee. I would think about it tomorrow or I just might plunge into the ranks of the stark raving mad.

  “Are you really going to work a notice next week?”

  “Yes, Eve. I told you I would, didn’t I?” He sounded much less sure of his plan than he had the night before. Of a sudden, he seemed to be having troublesome second thoughts about his hasty, alcohol induced decision to quit his job. “I just don’t know how I will keep my house.”

  Did he have to lay every ounce of guilt for his resolution to quit at my feet? It had been his idea, not mine. Maybe that was the cause of his obvious distress this morning. Odds were he wasn’t even thinking about Chia. Surely, he was more concerned with the nagging question of how to keep his house and pay the bills that arrived like clockwork, than with a piece of ass.

  If he truly loved me, as he so adamantly professed to do, wouldn’t he be able to withstand the slanted eyes of temptation at work? I couldn’t risk Adam losing everything he owned on account of my jealousy. That wouldn’t bode well for either of our futures. So I took the opportunity to ease his troubled mind. “You don’t need to quit your job, Adam.”

  This caused a beaming smile to light his boyishly
handsome face as his blue eyes fair danced. “Do you mean it, Eve? I’ve got to admit I’m shocked! What brought about this sudden change in you?”

  “Just hearing you say you would was enough for me.” I hoped this would elevate his mood and we could have a good day. “I would be tearing my hair out if I didn’t have a job and a way to pay my mortgage next month. How could I ask you to put yourself in such a stressful situation?”

  He glanced over his coffee cup for a long, appraising look and reached to caress my cheek. “You are one of a kind, Eve. Do you know that?”

  Was that an actual tear twinkling in his baby blues? Had he finally seen the light and realized the error of his ways?

  “You won’t regret this, Baby.”

  God! Please! Don’t let me regret it! “Just promise that you’ll keep those roving eyes to yourself at work.” I laughed with a sound that lacked even the smallest trace of humor.

  “That is one promise that will be easy to keep.”

  At times he could sound so sincere.

  “I only have eyes for you now, Eve.”

  That was surely a first!

  “Okay, that’s settled. What’s on the agenda for today?” I reached under the counter for the frying pan. Bacon and eggs over easy with buttered toast was his favorite breakfast.

  “Get dressed and let’s go to Charlotte to the mall.”

  Huh? I had feared earlier that I would need to fetch a walker to help his weary body struggle down the hall, and now he was feeling spry enough to go gallivanting around a mall? What was the reason for this sudden burst of enthusiasm? I wouldn’t allow myself to dwell on the possible causes of his unexpected jubilation. It couldn’t be attributed to the fact that he would continue to see the enchanting Chia every day at work. Could it?

  “Don’t cook breakfast.” He stretched and grabbed me for a bear hug and a quick kiss before heading to the shower.

  Whew! Talk about morning breath! The man knows I have a weak stomach!

  “I’m taking you to lunch at your favorite restaurant.”