by Naomi Niles
“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, you 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?”
“Hey. Um, I just wasn’t feeling it today. Plus, I knew I had a lot of work to do, so I just wanted to get started on it so I wouldn’t be here all day.”
She put the small box of doughnuts on my desk and took a seat. “A lot of work? Honey, that never stopped you before. What’s wrong? You aren’t your normal, joyful self. Something wrong with your boyfriend? What’s his name? Davin? Shavin?”
“Gavin.”
“Yeah, him. Trouble in paradise? I know that is something that would throw me off. That is, if I could ever get my hands on a decent man.”
I flipped through my notepad to look at my schedule for the day. There was a lot going on between us, but I didn’t want to talk about it. The thought was strong enough to send pain through my heart. “Nothing. Just um, I guess we just hit a rough patch. I’m not sure if it will last though. I mean, I started off good, but now? I just don’t know. I guess that is the story of my life though, you know? Things start off well, but eventually, it all goes to shit.”
“Shit? Wow, you must really be going through something. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that language before, especially here in school.”
“Yeah. That’s just how I feel right now, you know?”
Sharon pushed the box of doughnuts closer to me, “Well, go ahead and eat something, girl. Ain’t no use of you starving yourself. Take a bite and get some energy, then deal with whatever the problem is later. That’s what helps me.” I looked at the box on top of the desk as she stood up. “I will come back in here and check on you later, okay?”
I nodded my head as she closed the door behind her. I had no idea how I was going to make it through the rest of the day, especially since everyone would know that something was wrong with me. I didn’t want to answer a million questions about what was wrong and why I was acting weird, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to avoid them. The bell rang at 8am, signaling the start of the day, and with that, I grabbed a few papers and headed to Principal Jones’ office. “Good morning, Bethany,” he said with a wide grin.
I forced a smile onto my face, “Good morning. How are you this morning?”
“I am well, thank you.” I put the small stack of papers on his desk. “Great. These must be the forms I had St. Mary’s fax over to me last night.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He leaned his head to the side, “Is something wrong? You don’t seem like yourself.”
“I am fine, sir. Just had a long night. Didn’t get a lot of rest.”
“Oh, I see. Yes,” he smiled as he leaned back in his chair, “I remember those nights. Hanging out with the guys, throwing back a few brews until the morning hours. Yes, those were the days. The only thing about that is if I try to have those days now, I would need to take at least a week off from work.” He chuckled. “Yeah, we are not as young as we used to be. Well, me in particular. You look like you can still hang out a little bit.”
“Yeah, I can, but it’s not that. I just had a lot of work to do, that’s all.”
“Okay. Well, hopefully, this day will go by fast so you can get some rest. You are like a morning cup of coffee for the majority of people here. I would hate to see you lose that spunk.”
“Yeah. Well, I should get going. Thank you, Mr. Jones, and if you need me, I will be in my office.”
“Sounds good.”
I left his office and made a beeline straight back to my room and closed the door. I usually kept it open, but I didn’t want any visitors today. I just wanted to sink into my chair and disappear from the world. If only things were that easy. I stayed under the radar as the day went on and afterward, I didn’t stand outside with the children. It killed me because they were usually the ones that helped brighten my day, and vice-versa, but right now, I didn’t feel like anybody could. I left the school and went straight to April’s house.
She was in the kitchen preparing a meal for the evening when I showed up and flopped into her kitchen chair. I put my head down on the table as she stood near the stove; her belly protruded a lot more than I remembered. “Are you still depressed over Gavin?”
“He still hasn’t called me or anything. What else am I supposed to do?”
“Call him.”
I lifted my head up, “No. I am not calling him just so he can hang up or treat me like dirt. No.”
“How do you know he will do that?”
“I don’t, but I don’t want to take the chance, either. I’ve been embarrassed enough, and I don’t think I can stand anymore.”
She turned off the eye of the stove, then sat down in a chair across from me. “Look, I don’t think you need to hang yourself up on him. Honestly, there are plenty of fish in the sea. All you have to do is throw the line out there again, and I’m sure you will snag somebody else. How about we get you back on the site and find somebody else? If he contacted you that quickly, then I am sure somebody else will.” She reached for my hand, “Come on, let’s go see–”
“No, April. I don’t want to do that again.”
“Why not?”
“Because. Listen, with my past? I don’t think any guy on there will go for me. I may as well go back to the gutter of society if I want to find a man. Who knows? Maybe I’ll luck up and find a diamond in the rough.”
She raised one eyebrow above the other and folded her arms over her chest, “Um, no. I am not going to let you do that, Beth. You are better than that, and you are not going to go searching through the gutter for somebody else just so they can abuse you again. No. If you are going to do that, you may as well go back to Anthony.”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Beth. Don’t be stupid.”
“I don’t know, April. But one thing I do know is that I am not ready to go on that website or any other website like that. Not now, and maybe not ever. I had the perfect guy, and like I said before, things are just not meant to end well for me. I see it now, and I understand. Completely.”
She scooted closer to me and put her arm around my shoulder. I wished that I could find somebody like Mark. Somebody who could accept my crazy past and still love me like I didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, after all, it was my past, and April was right. I’m sure he did some fucked up things back then as well, so it didn’t make sense that he would hold this against me. The more I thought about it, the more I started to get upset about how he was treating me. I wanted to call him and tell him how I felt, but I knew that wouldn’t end well. I’d rather let things go the way they were going and not worry about it. If we were meant to be together, then we would be, and if not, then, we would just go our separate ways. It was a hard pill to swallow, but I ju
st had to deal with it.
I stayed at April’s house until 8pm; then I headed home. She tried to get me to spend the night over there since Mark was out of town on business, but I wanted to be alone. I wanted to curl up in my bed and get back to reading my love novels. I felt that I had to live my love life vicariously through the lives of fictional characters just so I could imagine what it was like to be completely in love. I left April’s house and made my way home. In my rearview mirror, a truck eased behind me with its high beams on. They blinded me when I looked into the rearview mirror. Fucking jerks, I said as I shifted my mirror away from the bright lights.
It wasn’t until the third light that I realized the truck was following me. Each time I moved to another lane, the truck behind me moved to the same one. If I sped up to make it past a yellow light, the truck sped up as well. I couldn’t see what kind of vehicle it was because the high beams were too bright, and from there, I felt a chill sweep over my body. I thought it was Anthony. It had to be him. I gripped my steering wheel and accelerated on the gas, swerving in and out of lanes as I tried to get away from him. The truck stayed right on my tail, swerving through lanes with ease, as if it were a smaller vehicle.
My hands shook as they gripped the wheel. I was too nervous to call anyone, but then again, there was nobody I could call. April was pregnant, and she was not in the position to help me right now. Gavin was pissed at me, and after what he found out about my past, I knew he would be the last one to help me if things got rough. I felt a sickening feeling shoot to the pit of my stomach, and for the first time since I left Richmond, I felt completely alone. I wiped the tears from my eyes as I pushed down on the gas, flowing through intersections as if I were the only car on the street.
Every time I glanced up, I was blinded by the headlights. From there, I hoped that I would whizz past a police officer or something. I just needed to get someone’s attention. I slid my foot on the brake and slowed down, then accelerated into a right turn. A car honked its horn at me when I almost swerved right into it. The blinding light appeared once again in my rearview, but with open road in front of me, there was nothing stopping me from flooring it as hard as I could. Trees whipped by me in the blink of an eye as I created distance between me and my pursuer.
