by Naomi Niles
She left my side and walked to the car. I wanted to say something to her, but the words hid from my lips. I didn’t know what to say. Bethany used to be a stripper, and from there, I couldn’t do anything but wonder what else about her past that she was keeping from me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
BETHANY
I went straight home after Gavin dropped me off at his house. We didn’t say a word to each other before I left. I was too embarrassed to say anything to him, and I was afraid of to hear what he was thinking, so I didn’t even want to ask him. I just wanted to get away from him as soon as I could. I cried the whole car ride home, and when I got there, I called April to let her know what happened. She could barely understand me over the phone, so she told me that she would be at my place as soon as she could.
I climbed into my bed and buried my head into the pillow, crying out loud because I knew that I probably just screwed my chances with Gavin. Not only that, but now he knew what I used to do before I got to Roanoke, and I didn’t even get the chance to tell him myself. “Bethany?” April called out. Her voice echoed off the walls as she shut the door behind her. “Bethany? Where are you?”
I sniffled. “I’m in here, April. I’m in my room.”
She came inside as I had my face buried into the pillow. I felt her get onto the mattress, and seconds later, she put her arm around me for comfort. “Come on, Beth, it’s gonna be alright. What happened? I thought you were going to tell him tonight?”
I wiped my eyes clear. “I was. I was going to tell him tonight just like you said I should, but we got to the restaurant, and before I could say anything, this guy walks up to our table. I immediately knew who he was because he was one of my best customers. I tried to brush it off as if he had me confused, but it was no use. He knew, and I knew he did. He spent a lot of money with me, you know?” She handed me a Kleenex as I continued, “Anyways, he called me Mystique, and that was the name I went by back then. He called me that, and my heart sunk beneath the table. I just wanted to disappear. I looked at Gavin, and his eyes were wide, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. Tears continued flowing from my eyes like streams, and the Kleenex barely worked at keeping my face dry. “Anyway, after I failed at trying to convince him that I was not Mystique, I got up and ran out of the restaurant. As soon as Gavin came outside, I told him the truth. After that, he didn’t say a word. He didn’t say a word to me, April. We just got in his car, and he drove me back to his house so I could get my car, then I left. He didn’t say a word to me, April. Nothing. He fuckin’ hates me now, and I know it! He probably thinks I am some whore or something!”
I buried my head into her shoulder as she stroked my hair with her hand. “Ssssh, ssssh, don’t cry, Beth. Don’t cry. You don’t know what he is thinking because you didn’t ask him, and it is not fair to assume. Now, it probably caught him off guard, and he just didn’t know what to say, but that doesn’t mean–”
“It means everything, April! Gavin is not the type of person who never knows what to say. I should’ve known this shit would blow up in my face because it was all going too good. It was too fuckin’ perfect. His son loved me. Me and Gavin had chemistry from day one. It was great, but now I know it was all a fuckin’ set up because nothing in my life is ever supposed to go well. I always have shit the fuckin’ hard way! I may as well go back to my fuckin’ ex and let him abuse me because that is all it seems like I deserve!”
“Bethany, you stop that right now! Stop it!” She grabbed a hold of my shoulders and stared me in the eyes. “You will not have a damned pity party on my watch! Look, we all make mistakes! We all have things that we have done in the past that we are not happy about. Hell, I’ve had a threesome before. Actually,” she shook her head, “they don’t call it a threesome when you have sex with two men. I don’t know why, but they don’t. Anyways, I did it. I’ve had sex with two men at once. I’ve gotten drunk and took my top off at parties. I’ve done a lot of dumb shit when I was younger, but we all have, and I’m sure Gavin has, too. Nobody is immune from it, so stop talking down to yourself because of your mistakes.”
“No, April. This is different. I mean, this has probably fucked up the only relationship I could’ve ever had. I left Richmond to start over, but now, it just seems like my past won’t let me go. First, it’s my ex, and now, it’s this. How the fuck does this guy just have to be in the same restaurant, at the same time, in another fucking city? This shit is completely ridiculous, April, and it is all I need to convince me that love is not for me. Shit. I may as well be a fucking nun.”
“Well, I don’t think you could be a nun. I think you like sex too much for that, and from what I hear, the nuns don’t get none.”
I tried to hold my laughter in, but it didn’t work. I wiped tears from my eyes, “Shut up, April! Stop trying to make me laugh. I don’t want to laugh right now.”
She scooted closer to me, “Listen, if Gavin can’t understand that you used to be a stripper to make money to survive, if he can’t understand that we’ve all done stupid things when we were younger, then hell, maybe he is not for you. Maybe he is too much of a goodie-goodie to understand something like that, and trust me, you don’t want a man like him.”
“But, I do, April. I want a man exactly like him. He was fucking perfect for me. From the way he treated me to the way he made me feel. Like, damn, I don’t think I will be able to find anybody else like him.”
“Beth, you just have to live. You never know. Maybe he was just a set up for another man. Maybe he was there to get you warmed up for the man of your dreams. Who knows. Then again, maybe he is fine with the fact that you used to be a stripper. I mean, you aren’t one anymore, and that is the most important thing. You are making an honest living, and you are trying to do things the right way. Going to school to better yourself. You even moved to another city to get away from all that mess. It has to count for something.”
“Yeah. It should, but who knows, April? Who knows?”
She sat with me for a few more hours, talking and eating spoonfuls of ice cream to try and ease my pain. The cold did nothing to numb my feelings though, and no matter how much I ate, I couldn’t shake the thought that I had lost Gavin. After she left, I locked the door and went back to my room, burying my head into the pillow like an ostrich into the ground. I hoped that Gavin would call me because I was too afraid to call him. I didn’t want to reach out just for it to be an awkward silence on the phone, or even worse, I didn’t want to call him just so he could tell me that he no longer wanted to see me. I couldn’t take that heartbreak. Not right now. Not ever.
I curled up on the mattress with my dress on and my phone right by my head as tears cascaded down the sides of my face. I had everything in my hands, and just like that, in the blink of an eye, it all seemed like it was snatched away from me. No matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t escape my past, but now I realized that the only way I could deal with it was by confronting it. I should’ve told him everything earlier, and if I had, we would have never been in this position. He would’ve either broken it off then or showed me that it wasn’t a big deal to him. But now, with all my feelings attached, I didn’t know what I would do if he wanted to break it off. As I laid by the phone, it never rang, and the deafening silence was enough to send me into a state of depression.
Chapter Twenty-Five
GAVIN
Vinny walked into the kitchen just as I grabbed a box of cereal from the cabinet and set it on the table. He dropped his bookbag on the floor while I got the milk out of the refrigerator. “Dad?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Um. You just gave me a box of rice and a gallon of milk.”
I focused on what I placed on the table. “Sheesh, I’m sorry,” I said as I grabbed the box of rice and put it back into the cabinet. “I’ve got a lot on my mind this morning.”
“It’s okay, not a big deal. So, how was the date?”
/> I slid the box of cereal in front of him. “Oh, the date? It was, um, it was pretty good. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Okay. I mean, you came back kind of early, so I just thought that something went wrong.”
“What? No, everything was fine. Yeah, we just um, we knew we had to get up for work the next morning, so we didn’t want to stay out too long, that’s all. But go ahead and finish up your cereal so you can make it to your bus. I’ll be in the living room, alright?”
“Okay, Dad.”
I left him in the kitchen as I walked to the front room and sat down on the couch. I couldn’t shake the fact that Bethany was a stripper. Images of her dancing naked in front of other men while they stuffed dollars in her G-string floated through my brain. I wondered how many men had touched her in different places of her body. I wondered if she ever brought any of them home to have sex. A million things flooded my mind, and before long, I found myself getting more upset as the thoughts continued to flicker in and out of my imagination.
“Dad? Dad?”
I didn’t notice that Vinny was standing near the door until he called my name the second time. I hadn’t even noticed that he walked by me. “Yes?”
“I’m ready to go to the bus.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Okay.” I stood up, “How long have you been standing there?”
“For a few minutes. I called you a few times, but it seemed like you were kind of spaced out.”
“Yeah.”
I opened the door, and the sunlight shined right down into my eyes. I put my arm around his shoulder and walked him to the bus stop. “So, you don’t have any notes you want me to give to Bethany today?”
“No, son. No notes. Not today.”
“Dad, are you sure everything is okay? You just seem a little different.”
“I’m fine, kid. I’m fine. I promise.”
There was no way I could tell him that Bethany was a stripper. The thought that he was hanging around her so much didn’t even rub me the right way, especially knowing her past. I almost wanted to tell him to stay away from her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew he would start asking questions, and that would just lead to more discomfort between us all. A few minutes later, his bus arrived on our street. “Alright, son, have a good day at school, alright?”
“I will. You have a good day at work.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
I watched him get onto the bus and waited until it pulled off before I went back home and got my things so I could head to work. Shirley’s desk was empty when I got to work. We fired her on Friday, so as of now, the spot was being filled by one of our interns. Sarah was doing a good job, but she was temporary because she had to go back to school in another month. “Good morning, Mr. Wallace. You have a meeting at 10 am with the general managers.” She handed me a cup of coffee, “And after that, a few clients from Swayson Company will be stopping by. That is not until early this afternoon. 1 pm.”
She handed me a sheet of paper with the itinerary on it. I blew the steam off my coffee and took a quick sip. “Thank you, Sarah,” I said without making eye-contact with her. “I appreciate your diligence. It is greatly appreciated.”
“No problem, sir. Let me know if you need anything.”
I nodded my head, then made my way into my office and tossed the paper on the table. I flopped down in my seat and exhaled deeply. Bethany’s picture was still to the left of my computer. In my mind, I painted all kinds of makeup on her face and replaced her clothing with a bra and a thong. I shook my head, then put the picture frame face down on my desk. It can’t be this bad, Gavin. It can’t be. I stood up, walked to my window, and opened the blinds. The sunlight snuck through the openings as I glanced down below. Cars moved along the streets like ants following in a single file line. People walked up and down the sidewalks as they rushed to their destination. Gavin, she used to be a stripper. That’s it. She used to be one.
I turned my back to the window, then sat down at my computer. I shook the mouse to wake it up, and immediately I thought about the website that I met Bethany on. I chuckled to myself. Shit, she should’ve put that she used to be a stripper on there. That would’ve made things easier for me. That was illogical, though. Nobody would present themselves by showing all of their faults. Suddenly, I started to recollect bits of my past. The way I had one-night stands and then discarded numbers soon after. The way I didn’t treat Karen with respect and forced her to leave me. We all had mistakes in our past, and that was the truth, but for some reason, I had a hard time accepting Bethany’s.
Before I knew it, the clock dipped close to 9:50 am. A few moments later, there was a knock at my door. “Come in,” I said as I sat behind my computer.
Sarah poked her head into my office, “Mr. Wallace, are you ready for your meeting?”
“Wow,” I said, looking at my watch. “I didn’t know it was time already.” I grabbed my notebook, “Yeah, I’m ready. Thank you, Sarah.”
She smiled. “No problem, sir.”
“Are you sure you want to go back to school? I mean, I can pay you a pretty penny if you stuck around here. You are doing an excellent job.”
“Well, Mr. Wallace, I am flattered by your offer, but I have one more year to go, so I am much too close to the finish line to stop now. However, if the opportunity is still here after I graduate, I’d love to come on board and work my way up.”
“How about you contact me after that, and we will see where we are?”
“Sounds good, sir.”
Her pearly white teeth glimmered with her bright smile. She led the way down the hall as her long blonde hair hung down to the middle of her back. She had a petite frame, and if I was the same man I was back then, I would’ve have taken a run at her, and that let me know that Bethany had done more to change my mind than any woman before me. I walked into the office as the managers stood and shook my hand when I entered. “Good morning, Mr. Wallace,” they said as I shook their hands.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Glad you all could make it. Let’s get started, shall we?”
I took my seat and as the meeting went on, I found myself zoning out. My mind placed Bethany front and center in the room, entertaining the managers. They smiled at her naked body as they held dollars in their hands while she danced on top of the table. “Mr. Wallace?” one of the managers said, garnering my attention.
I snapped out of the horrendous daydream, “I’m sorry, Edwin. What was that?”
“I was asking you if you had any questions about that marketing plan I just went over.”
“Plan?” My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at the projector. “Oh, right. The A1 marketing plan.” I scanned over the diagram, “Nope, no questions. It all looks pretty straightforward from here. Please, continue.”
“Very well.”
He smiled and continued his presentation as my mind tortured me by placing Bethany in different positions around the room. I felt my hand tightening into a fist as I saw her bend over in front of one of the other managers. A devilish smile escaped his lips as he took a dollar bill and slid it into her thong. She smiled and winked at him before she spun around and planted her ass right in his lap. Mother fucker! “And that right there is the second marketing plan, A2. Mr. Wallace?” His voice was background noise to me until I heard him the second time. “Mr. Wallace?”
Bethany’s image left my imagination as the room full of managers looked in my direction. “Men,” I said, standing to my feet, “I am going to have to ask one of you to email me the specifics of this meeting. I am sorry, but I have a lot of things going on right now, and I cannot give my full attention to the plan. I trust that you all can come up with something feasible for this company in my absence? Henry? Will you take care of sending me that email?”
He looked curiously at the other men, then turned towards me, “Yeah. Sure, boss, I’ll take care of it. I’ll get it right over to you as soon as we are done.”
“Good. Thank you. And after this meeting, yo
u all go ahead and take the rest of the day off. I think we should be good until tomorrow.”
They all smiled. “Excellent,” Edwin said. “Thank you, Mr. Wallace.”
“No, gentlemen. Thank you.”
I left the room, then went straight to Sarah’s desk. “Sarah? Can you do me a favor and reschedule my meeting today? See if they can come in tomorrow or Wednesday. I just realized that I had a few things that I needed to take care of today, so I am going to head out early.”
“Okay, no problem, Mr. Wallace. Is everything alright?”
“Um, yeah. Yeah, it will be. Thank you.”
I left her side, then went to my office and shut the door behind me. I grabbed my phone and scrolled until I got to Bethany’s name. I wanted to text her so we could talk more about her past. I didn’t just want to keep allowing my imagination to feed me bullshit that would keep me away from her. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, though. I went a few names lower and landed on Karen’s name. Right now, she felt like the better option, even with the uncertainty that clouded my mind about her motive. What if she means well, I thought to myself as I looked down at her phone number. I was caught in-between two women, and as I left my office, I had no idea which way I was going to go. I loved Karen, and that was a fact, but I thought I was in love with Bethany.
Chapter Twenty-Six
BETHANY
I avoided the teachers’ lounge when I got to work the next morning. My situation with Gavin had me out of character, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t snap out of it. I just wanted to hear his voice so I would know that we still had a chance, but as the days went by, it seemed like that was out of the question. It had only been two days, but it felt like two years. Sharon walked into my office with a small box of doughnuts. “Um, hey girl. Why didn’t you come into the lounge?”
