by Diane Nelson
“At some point they’ll force you to make a decision. You can’t stay in general ed forever.”
“Yeah, well, I ain’t ready.”
Not yet lingered on his face this time, a big step up from the set in stone scowl he’d used the first time I brought it up.
I knew when to pick my battles so I shrugged and muttered, “Well, when you want to talk about it…” letting my voice trail off. Tray would balk at a full frontal assault but if I niggled at the edges he’d eventually stop turning a deaf ear.
Besides, I still had a ways to go before the gentle giant was going to be comfortable with anything containing more than two syllables. ‘Andouille sausage’ would throw him for a loop right now and I had plans to add some culinary reading to his syllabus.
The boy had talents that went far beyond slam dunks.
After helping him clear the dishes, I edged out the door with a, “Gotta go,” and a wave of thanks.
I grabbed my backpack out of the trunk and locked up. The air was chilly for early October and I hadn’t really dressed for it. Jogging to Etty’s place seemed like a good idea but before I got far, Tray’s voice floated into the night.
“You want to cancel tomorrow since ya gots that midterm on Tuesday?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Oh hey, I almost forgot. Coach Ryan wants you to stop by when you have time.”
Oh really.
Chazz came out of the elevator just as I shoved my way into the lobby. Two across and three blocks downhill after eating, even keeping to a slow even jog, hadn’t been my best option. I was breathing hard and the backpack had moved from lightly stuffed to Everest assault weight.
We did the how’d it go, fine, see you tomorrow routine.
Then Chazz said, “Coach would like an audience. Tomorrow if possible.”
“Uh, thanks. I might have to email him with the progress report. I’m a little—”
“Not Coach Bryant. Ryan wants to see you.” Chazz looked down at me, his eyes narrowed to slits, going into protect the wimmun and chillun territory.
It gave me a warm, fuzzy … and then a hot flash of indignation.
If that jerk can ignore me for coming on four weeks, then snap his fingers and expect me to jump to his tune he’s got another think coming that SOB POS mother—
Chazz snorted and scooted out the door.
Etty was pouring hot water into a mug with my soothing chamomile teabag, for my post-Robert calm down session.
“Not tonight, daughter mine. I need something more bracing.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Yes, no, not really.”
Robert hadn’t been a source of irritation for some time. Dress sizes, pert breasts, skinny asses and translucent skin were my new rallying points, and I had the benefit of all that without needing to engage in a sparring match with my rat bastard husband.
Oh, I was on a roll.
Twenty-two years. Years of sex so subpar I had no idea that I was missing anything. Years of put downs. Dissing. Of never measuring up.
Then along comes this man. This gorgeous, domineering hunka burning lust and with one swipe of his mouth, his clever hot lips, his…
Oh mercy, I was wet with wanting what I couldn’t have.
Loretta poured a generous dollop of vodka in a mug, added cranberry juice and swirled it with an apologetic shrug.
“Sorry, no OJ.”
Grabbing the cup, I swigged the contents and held it out for more.
“Don’t you have a mid-term you wanted to study for?”
“It’s economics. All I need to do is write Adam Smith sucks lemons and the instructor will cream his jeans and give me an A for showing up.”
“Mom!”
“Well, it’s true.”
It was. The kid had a hard-on for tall women of a certain age with dyed crimson hair knotted in dreadlocks. He was also on the intramural squad with the least talented group of ball handlers I’d ever seen. That was the other remedial effort I’d assumed without Bryant asking.
Young Jeff blossomed under my tender tutelage. And the way he guarded me I had the distinct impression my tutelage wasn’t the only thing on his mind.
You used gifts where you found them.
Besides, he had that whole Antonio Banderas Desperado look going with an earring and long straggly black hair swept back in a tail. If he lost the tortoiseshell frames he’d actually be handsome in that unformed grad student way.
And anybody who could talk about guns and butter with a straight face was okay in my book.
Etty rested her chin on her hands, waiting.
“Oh all right. It was bad.” I explained about the bimbette, tiptoeing around ‘little robert’ but she had that canny expression that told me volumes about her perceptive abilities. That or she and Tonia had been having more heart-to-hearts behind my back.
In no universe was it okay that the fruit of your loins should know that her father was a lying, cheating sumbitch. That it had driven a wedge between them was clear. They spoke less and the few times I’d been privy to Etty’s side of the conversation, it hadn’t been cool and copasetic.
She still loved him, and for that I was grateful and I would never, ever, try to break that bond … but the issue of respect loomed large. On that I feared I wasn’t providing much backup. I kept my mouth shut, as much as I could, but my face was an open book most times.
My darling daughter. She hugged me and said, “One more month, that’s all.”
That wasn’t all. It was a gate. On the other side, I still had a long three months or more of disassociating myself from my former life. Then, and only then, could I take a breath and start on making plans for my future.
Chugging my third helping of moral turpitude, I stumbled to the couch and yanked the text book out of the backpack. Falling asleep, with the page opened to a watery landscape of charts and graphs, was a time-honored university student tradition. It worked fine at mid-terms. Finals required a slightly more proactive approach. If I should live that long.
I smiled at Etty and slurred, “Osmosis,” and let my head rock against the back of the couch.
“Um, Mom? Coach Ryan called. He wants to see you.”
Yeah, yeah, right.
“He said something about trying to reach you but the cell won’t go to voice mail or something.”
I managed a ‘huh’ without a lot of interest. Not my problem.
“Where’s your cell?” I waved to my purse on the coffee table. She tickled the keys with her thumbs and looked at me oddly. “You blocked him.”
Oh shit. I so did not.
Infusing my voice with a thick layer of knock me over with a feather, I said, “I don’t even know how to do that.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
She did a thing or two to the device and handed it over with a flourish and a sly expression.
“Fixed.”
That meant the next time he called, assuming there was a next time, I’d either have to answer it or let it go to not giving up.
Damn, damn, damn.
He said he was coming for me. I tapped on the calendar app and counted off days but the beginning and end points had blurred. Where had we started? Did the clock stop on Election Day? Or when the papers got filed into the system? And why did it matter?
Etty mumbled, “Goodnight,” and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving me to a belly awash with liquid misgivings and a boatload of longing.
With a month away from the man that whole episode had taken on the aura of a bad dream, one I’d finally woken up from. I’d even gone hours at a time not thinking about him. Much.
There was no way I was seeing him. Not on his terms.
I wasn’t cheap and I wasn’t easy. I was a ’ho worth fifty large and it was time I started acting like it.
I reset the clock to twenty-nine days, just because it suited.
Take that, Coach Jack, I’m-coming-for-you, Ryan.
…I’m not waiting forever…
>
Neither am I, Jack, neither am I.
Chapter Thirteen: Score!
The test results were spread out on the counter. High to low, low being a C- and high being a C+, all passing grades.
My heart beat a pitty-pat with pride, the flush of pleasure making my ears tingle. The boys did the expected blow off and shrugging, but I could tell they were happy enough. In any case I planned on being thrilled for all of them.
I announced, “Stombolis and pizza’s on me tonight.” The bimonthly stipend, meager as it was, would do to cover a celebratory dinner and a few pitchers of beer.
Grant and Moses did a sniff test, both grimacing. We’d been going at it hot and heavy all afternoon, taking a well-deserved break from the 3Rs, despite the bitter wind and threat of snow.
Tray suggested we all grab showers and meet down at my place in a couple hours. That sounded good to me so I headed out, power-walking to keep my muscles from seizing in the cold.
The cell buzzed in my pocket, again. Probably for the fifteenth time that day. It wasn’t always Mr. Persistent, just maybe eighty percent of the time. As luck would have it, I’d had legitimate excuses to avoid the requested visit. As he was my boss, I was bound by contract not to blow him off. Not and keep my teaching assistantship. Tonia’s checkbook might have a long reach, and I might be able to dodge bullets, but if the man had even a teeny vindictive bone in his body he could make it very awkward for everyone else around me. That included Coach Bryant and Chazz. Even my boys.
Of course, if that ever happened hell hath no fury like a woman done wrong.
But he’d had admin duties doing mega-dumps on his desk, with a suspected case of cheating, and the talking heads at Old Main and the entire athletic department went into damage control mode. Coach Bryant and I hung back, keeping a low profile. Fortunately it wasn’t one of mine. But it was a red shirt freshman with enough promise that the powers that be managed to overlook certain deficiencies.
Both Jack and Bryant had argued long and hard against putting up with the kid’s shenanigans, to no avail. I pondered the downside to my potential job description, student apologist, as I crossed Beaver Avenue and dove into the apartment building.
On the elevator ride to the third floor curiosity finally won out and I flipped the cell phone open to check the number.
Oh crap, it was Robert. Now what?
As I exited the elevator, I immediately hit redial and he picked up on the second ring.
I apologized immediately, old habits dying hard, “I’m sorry, Robert, I’m just now getting out of class.” Since I was still out of breath, my gasps clearly audible in the speaker, he’d have no reason to doubt me. Besides, it was sort of, mostly true.
Silence.
“Um, what can I do for you?” Still nothing. I checked to see if the connection had been dropped. “Robert, is everything all right?” Now I was worried.
He came back on, or woke up, whatever the term was and mumbled something about having fires to put out. The dinner was cancelled. I didn’t need to come up, in fact my presence was no longer required at the functions, everything was fine, say hi to Loretta, bye.
I stared at dead air space and mouthed, what in the world was that?
Loretta was sprawled on her bed, studying. I yelled, “Yo,” to let her know it wasn’t a perv breaking in, then dove into the bathroom for a quick rinse off and some moisturizing to my seriously flaked alligator skin.
When I came out of the bathroom, she was in the kitchen, puttering.
“Did you talk to your father today?”
“Nope. Why?”
“Um, he just called and cancelled for this weekend.”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t seem terribly concerned. That said not-in-the loop.
“The thing is … he announced that he no longer needs me at any functions.”
That got her attention. She was well aware of the conditions of my enslavement.
“Did you talk to Grams?’
A grimace and violent headshake was my answer to that not-in-this-lifetime opportunity.
“Let me see what’s up.” She hit speed dial and I hovered, pretending not to care.
The thing was … if there was a problem—and the odds were very good it had something to do with the election—then it was a problem for me. The last thing I needed was an excuse for him to point a finger at me for not upholding my end of the deal. It wasn’t the winning that mattered, because win-lose-or-draw my only commitment had been to making a good faith effort. The rest was up to a fickle electorate in a conservative republican state. Robert represented solid rural Pennsylvania values, a man of the people, a defender of the faith, a champion of legal principles. The only way he was going to lose was…
Uh-oh.
Etty said, “She wants to talk to you,” and held out the phone.
I stared at it, mesmerized. It might as well have been a cobra poised to strike. I muttered, “Put it on speaker phone?” but Etty shook her head and waggled the device.
Weak-kneed, I asked, “Tonia? Do you know…?”
Loretta pulled out the fixings for Bloody Marys, mostly because Chazz had bought the mix on his last foray at the grocery store, somehow mistaking it for tomato juice. The recipe called for two-to-one mix-to-vodka, sans celery stick. While Tonia spoke in modulated tones, her voice tight and controlled, I tapped an index finger twice on my cheek in a one-to-one semaphore.
Ice chinking into tumblers formed white noise as Tonia finished up the info dump. I glanced at Etty who avoided my eyes, clearly not pleased with the events unfolding like a dam bursting.
“Okay, thanks, I understand. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can look at options.” She hung up and I said bye to thin air.
My daughter handed the glass over and we tipped them in mock salute. I felt violated all over again. Not so much for myself but for Loretta. Here was proof positive that her father was an unrepentant lecher.
Etty asked, “Is it the one from that dinner the other week?”
“Yeah, her. He claims it’s true love. She’s moving in with him.”
I sipped the spicy drink, not sure I wanted to get wasted. I was already numb. For twenty-two years, I hadn’t counted enough to even be a blip on his radar. His career, his needs had always come first. Not even first! They were the only things that mattered. I was furniture, maybe less, because I wasn’t functional in his world.
It’s hard enough to deal with a man falling out of love with you. It was a punch in the gut to know he probably never loved me. Never enough to give up an election. Never enough to retire to private life, to rejoin the law firm. Never enough to fight for me.
“It’s not all bad, you know.” Loretta should have been having a hissy fit but instead she looked at me with concern and understanding.
“How so?” I really wasn’t seeing the bright side.
“He’ll want to file for divorce and you have him by the short hairs. If he wants that bimbette so badly it puts you in the driver seat.”
I didn’t want to be in the driver seat. What I wanted I couldn’t, shouldn’t have. And there was no way I’d engage in fisticuffs over place settings and silver candlesticks. I’d do what Tonia demanded. File, do it fast, get out and the fifty large was mine, no strings attached.
In truth, I wasn’t sure I wanted it. But I would take it because that money would make for an investment in a young man’s future, a young man who would do right by my girl.
I knew that for a fact because I’d helped him pick out the ring on Wednesday. He wouldn’t tell me when he’d pop the question because … well, keeping secrets wasn’t exactly my strong suit.
“Oh, nuts. What time is it?”
“Seven, why?”
“We’re about to get invaded. Me and the boys are going out to celebrate them not flunking out.”
Etty gave me a thousand megawatt smile. “Well, then, you’ll have something extra to party over.” She held up her glass. “To freedom!”
“To freedom.�
��
Sort of. Maybe.
I didn’t feel free. Just deflated. Useless and used up. And even resetting the countdown clock still left me with ninety days of stutter steps and negotiations and the minutiae of dissolving a family unit. It didn’t matter that it existed only in my thick skull. It was going to be a long painful bucket list of coulda, woulda, shoulda.
That was my reality and no senseless ditty would make that transition any easier.
The boys showed up only fifteen minutes late. Etty let them in while I rearranged my attitude. There was no reason to spoil our evening just because my life was in the toilet. So the makeup came out—a swipe of mascara, gloss and a pinch of apricot blush—followed by jeans and a tan wool sweater, warm socks and L.L. Bean slides.
Tray gave me a nod of approval and a wink, the other two were hitting on Etty who fielded their sly innuendos with ease.
“Come on, guys. If we don’t hurry there won’t be any tables.”
Friday night was a zoo. Fortunately this wasn’t a football weekend so we did have an ice cube’s chance … but not if we tarried. The hard core would have left for Indiana for the game on Saturday. Across the street the frat houses were gearing up for rowdy, though it was just a prelim for the next night when the festivities would get down and spill into the street.
Moses and Tray flanked me, each of them grabbing a hand. Six-eleven to my left, six-five to my right, six-three behind me. Now I knew what a Munchkin in the Land of Oz felt like.
And if they picked me up and swung me, I was so going to…
Tray laughed out loud. “Forget it. You ain’t that light, girl.”
Grant was the one who muscled us to a table for two, then performed some feat of magic to make it large enough for male athletes of the jumbo variety. Tray placed the order for four large with everything, no fish and Moses debated the merits of Sam Adams Winter Lager versus Heineken with what looked like half the soccer team parked next to us. The pizzas were appetizers. We’d do the Italian and cheesesteak strombolis next.
The soccer squad had gone with deep fried mozzarella sticks to take the edge off. They handed the plate over for us to share. Pitchers, glasses appeared, then the pizzas. Tray draped an arm over my shoulder and squeezed. With all the raucous noise I couldn’t really catch what he said. It sounded like, “You’re okay.”
