When Friday evening wore down, Barbara expected Carter to invite her to his room, as he had the previous five years. He didn’t. And that angered and hurt Barbara—and made her regret taking the cross-country trip to homecoming.
“I can’t believe you’re not going to see me tonight,” she said to Carter in a text message. “We talked about this for a whole year. Now you change your mind? Why?”
She knew, but she wanted him to tell her. Carter and Jimmy sat at their hotel bar, sipping on water to hydrate after a day of drinking. They chatted with more classmates they came across and caught up more on each other’s lives. But Barbara’s message altered the lighthearted tone of the evening. Carter turned to Jimmy, who was reading a text of his own from his wife, Monica, who remained pissed off about not being at homecoming with her husband.
“We need to have a serious talk when you get back,” she wrote to him. “I have some decisions to make.”
Carter and Jimmy looked at each other with quizzical expressions. They needed each other’s advice.
“Go ahead,” Jimmy said. “You first. What is it?”
“So, Barbara wants to know why we’re not spending the night together,” Carter said. “And I don’t know what to tell her.”
“Well, what would you tell me?” Jimmy asked.
“That I’m not feeling this move to New York,” Carter said.
“Well, maybe you should talk to her about it,” Jimmy surmised. “It seems like something is missing to me, so it has to feel that way to her, too. You told me earlier today that you all are in love. That was this morning. Now, tonight, you don’t want to be bothered with her. That’s a big switch. You owe her an explanation.”
Carter nodded his head. He knew that answer before Jimmy gave it. He was hoping for something creative that would ease his mind, and Barbara’s, too, without having to express his dissatisfaction with her move. But the reality was iron-clad: She and her kids were moving to New York and he had to deal with it.
“Yeah, I know,” he said to Jimmy. “And I will have a heart-to-heart with her. Tonight. This won’t be easy . . . So what’s up with you?”
Jimmy shook his head. “The wife is tripping,” he said. “She hit me with ‘we have to talk’ and she ‘has some decisions to make.’ What does that sound like to you?”
“Well, whenever I heard, ‘we have to talk’ or told somebody that, it was about breaking up,” Carter said. “I don’t know what she means. But the part about having decisions to make doesn’t sound good, either.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Jimmy said. “We’ve had our issues in the past, but nothing that would threaten the marriage. I never cheated on her. I don’t go anywhere, really. For her to trip like this is crazy.”
“Maybe you should do like I’m about to do—have a heart-to-heart,” Carter said. “It can’t hurt.”
“You don’t know Monica,” Jimmy said. “That girl can make a mountain out of a pimple.”
They laughed. “Excuse me,” Carter said, hailing the bartender. “Can we get a shot of tequila?”
“I don’t even want a shot,” Jimmy said. “But I’ll take it.”
They tapped glasses of Herradura Reposada and downed the tequila.
“Okay, man, good luck,” Jimmy said as he and Carter walked to the elevators. “I’m going to my room to call my wife. If I’m not too rundown afterward, I might go to the all-black party at the Holiday Inn.”
“Same here,” Carter said. “I’ll let you know when I get off the phone.”
The two men went separate ways down the hallway of the eleventh floor. In his room, Jimmy turned on the television and hit the mute button. He always liked the TV on, whether he was watching it or not.
Before he could press the keys to reach Monica, his phone rang. It was Regina Anderson, his college girlfriend that he had seen at The Broadway.
Unfamiliar with the number, he answered anyway. “Hello.”
“Why didn’t you come and speak to me at the party?” she said.
“Huh? Who is this?” he asked.
“Regina.”
“Oh, hi, Regina. How are you?” he said. “How did you get my number?”
“Don’t worry about that; I did. Why didn’t you say hello to me?”
“I planned to; I did,” Jimmy said. “Then some other things happened and when it was time to go, I never saw you again.”
“I was there the whole time, with Sharon Prince, Sharon King and Debra Hall,” Regina said. “You just ignored me. Eventually we went up to the third level, where the lounge is. But I was so disappointed. I know you saw me.”
“Why didn’t you just come over to me?”
“I see you’re the same old Jimmy.”
“Really? How?”
“You’ve started an argument in less than a minute, that’s how,” she said.
“You called me with an attitude; not the other way around.”
Suddenly, there was a familiar silence and awkwardness for both of them. They’d had an explosive relationship in a good and bad way. Intense passion, intense arguments.
Finally, it hit Jimmy that he had grown and should handle Regina differently.
“So, listen, I’m sorry I didn’t get to say hello to you,” he said. “But how are you? I did see you and you looked great.”
“I couldn’t have looked that great; you would have come over,” she said.
“Regina, I have apologized and I’m trying to move on,” he said, getting exasperated. “You gonna move on with me or am I gonna get the same old Regina from ten years ago?”
“Okay, Jimmy, I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just so excited to see you and then to not get a hug and a kiss made me mad.”
“That should make you disappointed maybe, but not mad.”
“Well, I’m all right now,” she said. “Where you staying?”
“Why?” Jimmy asked.
“Because I want to come over and see you,” she answered. “Don’t you think we should spend some time together? It’s been too long.”
“I guess it depends on what you mean by that,” he said. “I’m married and I hear you’re married. So we have some limitations.”
“Jim, we have too much history to have limitations,” Regina said.
He knew what that meant. One of the reasons he liked Regina was her boldness. When she wanted sex, she asked for it.
“I’m not messing with you, Regina,” he said. “We can get together for a drink and to catch up, but that’s it.”
“Yeah, right; I’ve heard that before,” she said. “Where are you staying?”
“Waterside?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Are you serious?” Regina said. “Me, too.”
Jimmy closed his eyes and dropped his head. He did not want that kind of access to Regina. As adamant as he was about not giving in to her, he also knew he could be weak to her. They’d had a hot and heavy past that still burned in his mind, all these years later.
“Well, let’s meet at the bar on the mezzanine level,” he said. “How’s nine o’clock?”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be the one at the bar in the sexy dress. The short, sexy dress. Don’t be late.”
Jimmy disconnected the call and dismissed thoughts of Regina. His thoughts shifted quickly to Monica, although he did not know exactly what he would say to her. They’d had conversations in the past about one thing or another that put him on the edge. Not the edge of leaving, but the edge of thinking about leaving. It was that kind of marriage. They loved hard, but dealt with myriad hard times because of Monica’s sensitivity regarding fidelity—or the idea of infidelity. Growing up, she lay awake in bed and listened to her mother and father argue about his late-nights out with “women not good enough to have their own men,” as her mother called them.
She never understood how her mom accepted her dad’s philandering—they remained married, going on their thirty-fourth year. Still, Regina vowed to never let a man treat her as her father had her mother. That position was paramount in her developing what Jimmy called a “psychosis” that made her question anything that seemed out of sorts to her.
More than twice Jimmy underwent a battery of questions and drama over his actions, questions and drama he found unwarranted. “All men have something to hide,” Monica had said. “It’s just a matter of where they hide it.”
Once, they did not speak for three days because Jimmy arrived home after midnight one Monday night. When he told her he had been at a sports bar with his friends watching a Monday Night Football game, just as he had told her he would, she told him he was “a liar. Men do not hang out this late unless women are involved.”
Another time she refused him sex because she read one of his e-mails from a female that said: “Thanks for walking me to my car.” Monica’s position was he walked her to the car after a date with her. His position was she was a co-worker who left the building after dark and he did the gentlemanly thing to make sure she was safe.
Arguments Monica initiated that questioned his commitment and morals ate at Jimmy like acid. He loved his wife but hated some of her positions. And here they were again, at a relationship crossroads for what he deemed a logical choice.
“So, I received your text,” he said when Monica answered the phone. “What are you so upset about? And you have some decisions to make? What does that mean?”
“It means, Jimmy, that I’m tired of feeling like I should sit at home while you gallivant all over the place, chasing women,” she said. “I just can’t—”
“What, Monica?” Jimmy interrupted. “You can’t what? You can’t trust me? That’s a real problem. Let’s just put it out there because I’m tired of it. You’re one of those women who cannot stand prosperity. I have not cheated on you. Period. And yet all I get from you is doubts. I can’t take it anymore. You’re going to have to do something or we really are going to have some problems.”
In that one tirade, Jimmy put the onus on Monica, who could not get a word in because Jimmy was in a rage.
“There are men who do whatever they like, married or not,” he said. “They cheat just because they can. There are men who consider being with other women a sport, as if it’s a game. I know these men. I’m not one of them. And here’s the crazy part: They get no grief from their wives because their wives trust them. And here I am, being faithful, and I catch hell from you almost every day about one thing or another. Well, I’m sick of it. It’s stupid, but mostly it’s wrong and I don’t deserve it.”
“You talking all loud and with conviction doesn’t convince me of anything, James,” Monica said. “I know what I feel, and I feel like you’d rather be out there among a bunch of women than with your wife. And I don’t deserve that.”
Both of them were seething, and Jimmy knew that was a conflict that was combustible. But he didn’t care.
“Do you like drama or are you just dumb?” he went on.
“You calling me ‘dumb’?” she said.
“I didn’t,” Jimmy said. “I asked if you were ‘dumb.’ You have to be something to ignore what I said to you. But I’m going to take my time and repeat it so maybe you feel me on it: I have not cheated on you. Period. If you don’t believe me, if that is not good enough for you, then I don’t know what else to say.”
Monica did not know where to go with that one. Jimmy had effectively put her in defensive mode. But that did not stop her from firing right back at him.
“I heard what you said, but that doesn’t mean it’s the truth,” she said. “Any man who is proud of his wife would take her to his homecoming. Any man who wouldn’t must not be proud of her or must have a reason for not wanting her around. And with a man, that reason is usually another woman.”
“Forget talking about what a ‘man’ would do,” Jimmy responded. “Talk about me, about what I do. Not even what I would do, but what I do. What I have done since the day I met you is be available to you, respect you, honor our relationship. I haven’t been out there at strip clubs or at clubs partying every night. You seem intent on placing me in a category with any common man, which would be okay if I acted like any other man. But I haven’t.
“Like I said, get yourself together, Monica,” he said. “I have been good to you. I’m not taking it anymore. One of my friends is here with his wife and he’s miserable. She’s acting just as I expected you to act—insecure, petty, driving him crazy. You’re not even here and you’re doing that to me. You can’t even be honest with yourself about yourself. You’re insecure, baby. You think every woman is interested in me and that I’m interested in every woman I see.
“It’s not like that at all. I have been committed to you. You don’t see it or believe it, but I have. But—and this is not some kind of threat or anything, I’m telling you because I’m supposed to tell you—I’m not going to take it anymore.”
“If that’s not a threat, then what is?” Monica said. “I’m the one at home by myself while you hang out and party and do whatever you want to do. I guess I’m supposed to take this, huh? Well, I’m not taking it anymore, either.”
“Taking what, Monica?” Jimmy said. “You’re unbelievable. I don’t go anywhere. I haven’t taken a trip by myself before. When you go to wherever—Atlanta, New York on shopping trips—I say have a good time. I look up places online to make sure you have a good time. I trust you. I can’t stop you from doing something if you wanted to, and I’m not going to try. If we don’t trust each other, what do we have?”
“Well, I don’t know what we have. I’m really upset about this homecoming thing, James,” she said. “I feel like this all could have been avoided.”
Jimmy took a deep breath. He understood her concern about him going to Norfolk alone, but he did not like it. More than anything, he believed it spoke to her belief that he would step outside of their marriage.
“Monica, honey, I want you to really listen to me,” he said. His voice was calm and reassuring, almost as if he were trying to seduce her. “I love you. You are my wife. Nothing can break that. No doubt about it: you get on my nerves sometimes. And I guess I get on yours, too. But we’re married. It’s me and you, no one else. You’ve got to believe that. We should not have this kind of drama. Life is too short. Let’s live it in peace. But you’ve got to trust me.”
Although he spoke calmly, Monica also detected a desperation in Jimmy’s voice, like he was giving her one last opportunity to believe in him. And that feeling cooled her like a Gatorade bath. She did not know, though, how to acquiesce after being so harsh.
“Okay,” she said, and Jimmy thought his cell phone was breaking up.
“Okay” was a word Monica hardly ever uttered. In fact, Jimmy could not recall a single instance where there was a contentious situation and he made a strong point that prompted her to say, “Okay.”
“Excuse me,” he said to his wife.
“Okay, James,” she said. “I do love you and I want to trust you. I just have to try harder.”
Monica surprised Jimmy. He hoped she would come around, but he thought it would take time. Her essentially giving in gave him a euphoric feeling.
“Baby, I’m really glad to hear you say that,” he said. “That means a lot to me. I don’t want you having anxieties about me. We’re supposed to be happy. I want you to enjoy our life together as much as I am.”
“I do enjoy our life,” she said. “I just have to find a comfortable place with trust.”
“I will do all I can to help you,” he said. “The big thing is that you want to let go of those issues. That’s where it all starts.”
They went on to chat lightheartedly about Jimmy’s trip, her parents, and life in general. A call expected to become ugly turned out to be something that gave Jimmy hope that he and Monica would live more in harmony. But he had to do his part, too.
And his part at that time meant resisting the aggressive old girlfriend, Regina. She texted him as he talked to Monica: “Let’s make it ten at the bar, okay?”
That was fine for Jimmy. It gave him more time to build up his resistance to her. He did not recall much about their college relationship except that it consisted of frequent and intense sex. He used to say of Regina: “If this girl isn’t a nymphomaniac, then they don’t exist.” To which she replied, “Then you must be one, too, because you’re right here with me.”
Jimmy lived a disciplined life after Regina, though. Entering the Army did not curb his sexual desires, but it did place order in his life. When he met Monica, they blossomed, in part, because her passion level was equal to his. And they thrived despite her obvious trust issues because of Jimmy’s patience and commitment to her.
This was his first time away from home without Monica, and there was Regina, ready to pounce.
When Jimmy got to the mezzanine level, Regina was already there, long legs crossed and extended away from the bar. They were glistening under the short, short dress. Her modest cleavage was exposed and she smelled like fresh daisies. She knew Jimmy’s weaknesses and she attacked all of them.
He approached with a smile, but tentatively. She stood up to show that her body remained fit and firm after all the years. Jimmy shook his head. They hugged, and she pressed her body against his and held it there tightly for what seemed like a minute or two.
Jimmy inhaled her perfume and closed his eyes, and her body felt so familiar, so good. Then he literally shook himself out of the daze he could feel coming over him.
“Damn, girl, you still look great,” he said. “You actually look better than you did back in the day.”
“I feel better, too—figuratively and literally,” Regina said, raising her eyebrows.
“I bet you do,” Jimmy said.
“I bet you will find out,” she snapped back.
“Anyway, I’ve been drinking all day,” he said, looking over the bar.
“Well, it’s time to extend it into the night,” she said. “And you haven’t had a drink with me.”
He did not even bother to argue with her on that point; he knew she would never give in to him not drinking with her. So, he ordered two glasses of Pinot Noir.
“So why did you move getting together back an hour?” Jimmy asked.
“I had to talk to my husband for a while,” she said. “Good man, but paranoid. Thinks I’m down here going wild.”
“Aren’t you?” Jimmy asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “But now that you are here . . . ”
“I’m not the one,” Jimmy said. “You’re married, I’m married. We had our day and it’s not today.”
“Stop being a wet rag,” she said. “I’m not saying something has to happen between us. But don’t squash the idea of it. Let’s just have a good time and see where it takes us.”
“Regina, I know where you want to take it,” Jimmy said. “To bed. But I can’t sleep with you.”
“I understand,” she said, making Jimmy feel somewhat relieved. But she followed that up with: “But who said anything about going to sleep?”
If he had any doubts about Regina’s plan, that comment confirmed it. He did his best to guide the conversation away from her objective. They talked about her life in Delaware and marriage and old friends. They touched on travel and eating right and how awesome homecoming was.
But at eleven-fifteen, after three glasses of wine, Regina’s plans for the night were concrete.
“I’m in room 803,” she said. “I actually have some wine in the room. Let’s go up there.”
“Regina, I’m done drinking,” he said. “I’m going with Carter to the all-black party. Nothing good will come out of going to your room.”
“You must be getting old or losing your memory,” she said. “Or your manhood.”
Challenging Jimmy’s manhood was a route she expected to push him off of his stance. Didn’t happen.
“I fought in Iraq against insurgents and the Taliban,” he said. “I traveled that desert praying a landmine would not blow up our truck. I lived under duress for more than a year in the Middle East, not knowing if I would ever make it back home . . . helped raise my little brother when my parents passed in four months apart. I put myself through college. You can say what you want, but you can’t challenge my manhood, Regina.”
She looked at him for several seconds and smiled. “You have done a lot in your life,” she said. “I’m proud of you. You’re most definitely all man. I was trying to rile you up to get what I wanted. I’m sorry.”
Jimmy was almost taken aback by her sensitivity and willingness to retreat. That was not her style. Maybe she has grown since their college days, he thought.
They spent the next half hour laughing and reminiscing about college days. When Jimmy decided it was time to leave for the all-black party in Virginia Beach, he offered her a ride to the event. He was not sure where that notion came from, but he was feeling good—or, at least better—about Regina and could not see the harm.
He sent Carter a text message about going to the party. But Carter was engaged in a heart-to-heart with Barbara that was tough because he was not sure what his true emotions were.
“I need you to be honest with me,” Barbara said. “For the last five years you have told me you loved me and that we belonged together. I believed you and I felt the same way. I committed adultery only because I love you and I believed in us. And now I do something for us and you act like, well, like you’re not happy about it.”
This was Carter’s moment to accomplish so much. He could be honest, first and foremost. He could deliver Barbara the words that would offer her so much comfort. He could free himself of the burden he carried.
“I am not happy or happy about it, Barbara,” Carter said. “I just wish we had talked about it before you made such a big move. If you say you’re moving there for me, then I should have been in the thought process. You’re talking about not only changing your life, but changing mine, too. To move all the way across the country, to pull your kids out of school and away from their father . . . to be with me? That’s a lot. That’s all I’m saying. That’s a burden I have to carry, and I wasn’t looking to carry it. Or at least I would have liked to see if I could get prepared to carry it.”
Barbara did not say anything, so Carter continued.
“I want you to understand this—I love you. There is no doubt about that,” he said. “In the last five years, we have loved so hard over one weekend that it would last me an entire year. I wanted to see you more often, but I was all right because I knew my place in your life. I knew what your life consisted of and we shared enough in our time to hold me. That’s saying a whole lot. I hope you don’t take that lightly.
“So, now you’re coming to New York to live. New job, new city. Big job in the biggest city. And you told me you’re doing it for me, so we could be together. You don’t think that’s a lot for me to handle? No notice. No heads-up. Just ‘SURPRISE!! I’m moving to New York to be with you.’ I can say that overall I’m glad I’ll be able to see you more. I’m sorry about your marriage. As much as I love you and loved being with you, I always felt bad for how we were together. I hate that I disrespected that man in that way.”
“And that’s why I did this, Carter,” Barbara jumped in. “I told you I was so sick with myself. I have prayed and prayed for forgiveness. But it just isn’t right to keep praying every year, but then come back and do the same thing the next year. I had to make a tough decision. A gut-wrenching decision. My kids love their father. He loves them.”
Carter could not hold back a concern about all this that ate at him.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but how could you take them all the way across the country away from their father?” he said. “As much as you love me, those kids have to come first. You can’t—well, to me, you shouldn’t—just uproot them for your benefit.
“I read years and years ago when Oprah’s friend, Gail, got a divorce, she turned down a job making five million a year from Oprah in Chicago because she didn’t want to take her kids away from their father. I thought that was admirable. It was unselfish. She had the kids’ best interest at heart and turned down money most people never would have.”
“So, what are you saying, Carter? That I’m selfish?” Barbara responded. She was not happy. She, indeed, was offended.
“You might want to know the facts before you start calling me names,” she went on. “That’s how you view me: as some woman so selfish she’d move her kids away from their father and friends to be with a man? To be with you? How arrogant of you. You must really think a lot of yourself.”
“Don’t get upset,” Carter said. “Don’t get offended. What do you expect me to think? You haven’t told me shit. All—”
“Don’t curse at me, Carter,” she interjected. “I don’t care how mad you get, don’t get disrespectful. You know I don’t like that.”
“I’m not trying to disrespect you,” he said. “I’m just making a point. Please don’t play the victim role, like you’re being attacked. You’ve told—”
“So you’re not going to apologize?”
“I’m sorry, Barbara. I wasn’t trying to disrespect you,” he said. “What I’m saying is all you have told me is that you’re moving to New York and that being with me was a part of the reason. What am I supposed to get out of that? That you did it for the kids? Please.”
“Okay, okay,” she said. “So you do think I’m selfish. I detest selfishness in people and no one has ever said or even intimated that I am selfish. But—”
“Oh, wait a minute, Barbara,” Carter said, interrupting her. “Now, listen, I don’t want to insult you. But no one could call you selfish because you probably haven’t told anyone about what you’ve been doing with me for the last five years. If a married woman coming to homecoming once a year to have sex with her old boyfriend isn’t selfish, then what is? You surely weren’t doing it for your kids? Who, exactly, were you doing it for if it wasn’t for you?”
Barbara was seething, so much so that tears rolled down her face. She was embarrassed and insulted—plain hurt.
“I did it for my sanity,” she said calmly, wiping her face. “I married a good man, but a man who was not for me, a man who did not give me any joy. I know that life is short and we must find the joy in it. To be in a joyless situation was empty and awful. And I needed some small amount of joy to feel better about myself, so I could be the mother to my children that I needed to be and, believe it or not, a better wife.
“I found that joy over two days with you. It was enough to sustain me, to bring me back to a place where I could function with some clarity and feeling something good in my heart. I know that’s a conflict because I was so disappointed in myself every time; I knew I was doing wrong based on my marital commitment. There is no way around that. But I was not just out here being a whore. There were times when I really felt depressed and on the edge of insanity, and in those times, I was not what I needed to be to my kids.
“This probably doesn’t make sense to you or wouldn’t to anyone else. You’d have to go through what I have to understand. So, I’m mad that you think I’m selfish, but I see how you could see that. I don’t see it that way. I see me as someone trying to get through life. And here’s the important part: I never slept with anyone else. Only with you, once a year during homecoming weekend. I swear.
“And I’m not saying you should be honored or anything. I’m just saying that I chose you for two reasons: I love you and you love me. We were young when we started, but what we had was real. And I know it was real because it has stayed with me all these years. But anyway . . . ”
Carter was not sure what to do or say. Their initial plan, before she dropped the news on him, was for them to go to the all-black party, enjoy seeing old classmates and then spend the night together, as always. But neither of them was feeling particularly romantic after such a heavy conversation.
“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the night?” he asked.
“I don’t think I’m up to the party,” she said. “I think I’ll call Donna and we’ll get something to eat. Or maybe I’ll order room service and watch a movie. I’m kinda drained right now.”
“I’m sorry, Barbara,” Carter said. “I really am. I definitely don’t want to cause you any drama. But I knew you wanted me to be honest with you. And I needed to be honest with you and myself.”
“Okay,” was all she said to that, a clear indication to Carter that she wasn’t feeling him.
“Okay,” Carter said. “Well, I’ll let you go. Wait, weren’t we supposed to go to the parade in the morning?”
“Well, we were supposed to go to the party tonight, too, Carter,” she said. “In my mind, we were supposed to be happy and enjoying each other and talking about how wonderful things will be in New York for both of us. But I guess I can’t get everything I want, right? I’ll just settle for a nice dinner right now. I can manage that without anyone spoiling it.”
Carter was troubled by Barbara’s state. He had never heard her in distress about him. They always existed in harmony, even as young students on a campus of soap opera drama.
But he did not—or was not willing—to do or say anything to help her feel better.
“Okay, well, have a great dinner,” he said.
Barbara did not respond. She pushed a button to end the phone call.