Chapter 4

 

In the morning, I sleep in and go upstairs to find Mike has gone, but he’s left me something: Two dozen red roses, with the sappiest love card ever.

How long will he keep trying to win me back? I hope he gets tired of it soon. This hurts, being reminded how much he loved me. How much he still does. I dial Aunt Clara.

“Hello?” she answers. She doesn’t go to church like most old people. I think she quit when her husband died.

“Hi, Aunt Clara. It’s me, Mandy.”

“Amanda. Did ya kick him out?”

“It’s a long story. I told him I’m finished but he talked me into a month of counseling, which I was okay with, since it’s the holidays. But he keeps trying to make up with me. Dinner, and flowers, and jewelry.”

“Of course he does, he knows which side his bread is buttered on.”

“It hurts, Aunt Clara. He still loves me. He’s been good to me…”

“Was he bein’ good to you when he was with the other woman?” When I take too long to answer, she pretends I said what she wanted. “Didn’t think so. A month, is it? I reckon he’ll show his true colors in that time. If he’s truly sorry, he’ll be just as sorry in a month as he is now.”

God, I can’t imagine a month of him bombarding me with apologies and proclamations of love. “Thanks, Aunt Clara. It all makes sense when you say it.”

“Ffff! It’s high time somebody recognizes that we old women know what we’re talkin’ about! You ring me anytime you need to, honey. We have a birthday party down to the lunch hall today. I need to go make sure those old putzes set it up right. Bye.”

I hang up and look at the roses and the card. Mike signed his name on the card, but wrote nothing more. So all of the words were someone else’s. Still, he did go to town and buy the stuff. The thought was there, and the effort. Jesus, it makes me feel like drinking again.

I wonder what my mom is up to.

My parents have a winter home just outside of Phoenix, and I consider calling her. Don’t think I’ll be telling her about my divorce until I have to, though. My parents are still married after all these years, and I feel like a failure already. I know this is on Mike, but if I truly wanted to make it work, I would. Right?

Hmm. Another long day with my family gone.

Christmas cards it is. I put on the holiday music and try to write some personal, positive blurb in each card, before tucking in photos of the kids and the newsletter.

The phone rings. It’s Brad.

I answer, “Hey.”

“Hey, good lookin’! Just callin’ to see if you guys wanted to come watch the game later.”

I close my eyes. Of course, Brad is still clueless about The Indiscretion. He should know his friend and his girlfriend double-crossed him, but I can’t bring myself to break it to him.

“Umm, I’m kinda playin’ hooky from Mike’s big family thing in Junction today.”

“Are ya sick? Cough due to cold? Nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, stuffy head?”

Leave it to Brad to get me laughing at a time like this. He’s our funniest friend and it’s really going to suck if I don’t get to see him anymore. Although, why would he choose Mike over me as a friend, if he finds out about Mike and Lana?

Winding down on a chuckle, I reply, “More like nausea due to in-laws.”

“You should come over then. Kick back.” I’m not much of a football person, as he knows. “You could just hang out, I’ve still got some Mikes in my fridge with your name on them. Lana will be here.”

Ding, ding, ding! Magic word.

“Uh, Brad, Lana and I aren’t exactly bosom buddies anymore.”

“Oooh, a girl fight! Can I watch? What’s happenin’?”

“Maybe you should ask her. Oops, I have another call comin’ in, but thanks for the invite!”

Damn, he’s probably gonna hate me later when he finds out what I’ve been keeping from him this whole time, but I can’t tell him. He’d break up with Lana and then it’d be all over town, and what if the kids heard about it? I can feel my heartbeat getting faster, and my breathing, too. Is this the start of a panic attack?

It’s way early for my walk, but I need to be in motion. If I don’t see Adam, I’ll walk back down there later.

The churches are all full while I walk past, feeling like a heathen partly because I don’t attend or even claim membership in one of them, but mostly because I’m hoping to see a certain man who’s not my husband. Oh, the disgrace of it all! I’m sin with legs, walking by. Inside, people must be sitting in pews, their attention wandering out the windows, watching me move past. I’d like to run, but I’m terrified I’d trip with such an audience.

I feel awful about keeping Brad in the dark. He’s one of the happiest guys I know, always ready to cheer up anybody who needs it. At least three women I know are waiting in the wings for him to be finished with Lana. Besides being a great guy to be around, Brad is good-looking in a non-traditional way. With auburn hair, green eyes and gorgeous, flawless skin, he looks like he belongs in a Ralph Lauren ad. My conscience tells me I should enlighten him about Lana so he can move on to someone worthy of him. Still, I don’t want him to dump her and have the reason get around town. Whether or not Mike and I divorce, our kids sure don’t need to know their dad did something so lousy.

* * * *

When I get to Adam’s, I don’t see his company truck. He must be working still. Bummer. Maybe it’s only a half-day for him, and if I dawdle… No, that’s lame. I’ll go home, walk back down later. For once, I’ll be showered and dressed in regular clothes instead of sweaty and wearing workout clothes. With that idea, I pick up the pace and hurry toward my house.

I’m turning the corner of my street when a vehicle honks behind me. I turn to see Adam’s work truck zoom curbside next to me.

My heart trips. I open the passenger door, smiling, and he looks, well…different. “Hey,” I chirp.

His face is red. What’s got him riled? When he sees my smile, he seems to loosen up.

“I’m gonna go home and change, then I’ll be back by.”

He nods, closing his eyes just longer than a blink. Did he think I was avoiding him, that I didn’t want to see him? Maybe he thought I made up with Mike.

“Don’t worry,” I say, making eye contact and leaning into the truck as close to him as I can and still maintain propriety. “I had to get outta the house earlier today, is all.”

“You want a ride the rest of the way?”

“No thanks.” I don’t need the neighbors to see me driving up in broad daylight with him. “I’ll be there in an hour,” I promise, then shut the door and jog away. Let him watch me go, if he likes it so.

* * * *

Snow is falling when I’m ready to go see Adam. I consider walking, but decide to drive this time. His is a circle drive set back from the road and shielded some by trees, so it’s unlikely anyone will recognize my Durango from the street. I won’t be there long anyway. Or so I tell myself.

Adam takes a minute to look me over from head to toe when he opens his door. It makes my heart race, like everything he does. I know I look different, better, in my street clothes. Since I lost weight and started paying more attention to my appearance, I discovered boot-cut jeans, dark ones, are very slimming. The waist on these is lower than my old mom jeans, and they’re stretchy, so my butt is positively perky in them.

Add the heels on my clogs, and I feel a good foot taller than in my running clothes. A real bra does much more for me than my sport bra uniboob look. Even after nursing two babies, the girls are still good-sized, if they do need a little more support than before. That’s why they call it a Miracle bra, right? I’m wearing a fitted red button-up shirt which flares a little to accentuate my waist, and I’m feelin’ fine. A little cleavage is showing, and my makeup hasn’t sweated off like it usually has when Adam sees me. My hair is styled instead of twisted up in my workout ponytail.

The way he stares tells me I look as good as I feel.

Guilt splashes my confidence like cold water in the face. I shouldn’t be coming here like this, tempting us both. What the hell is wrong with me? What is this magnetism that makes me need to see him every day?

Adam steps aside to let me come in, and when my arm brushes his going past, I swear I can feel an electric shock. He closes the door and looks at me awhile, as if deciding how to proceed. At last, right hand open near his shoulder, he says, “Scout’s honor,” and I laugh.

“You shouldn’t come here dressed anymore,” he informs me.

Teasing, I raise my brows. “I can’t really run around undressed.”

“You know what I mean.” He’s moved away, and I follow to the kitchen, where he has steaks ready to grill. Cool, I’m starved! I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but maybe he’s upset with me for dressing suggestively. It’s just jeans, not even tight ones. Just jeans, but I knew when I came here he would notice the difference, and I wanted him to.

I follow him out to his patio, which is sheltered by a deck above. Snow is flying all around, but not hitting here. He’s serious about his grilling–I can tell by the wide selection of tools and their covered rack mounted on the wall. Below the tools stands a shiny stainless steel behemoth of a grill. The steaks have been marinating, and the aroma makes my mouth water. He places foiled potatoes on the grill beside the steaks, watching me from the corner of his eye.

“You sure have a lot of alone time for a lady with two kids and a…” He clears his throat as if forcing himself to behave. “Husband.”

“I ditched an in-law get together. Refused to go.” I’m smug when I say it, proud of the stand I took. I mentally wrinkle my nose at his calling me a lady. It sounds like what a little kid would call me. I don’t know, maybe lady is a romantic term. Could be a Texan word. “My life’ll be on schedule again tomorrow when the kids are back in school.” Which means I won’t be hanging out in his house anymore, probably a good thing if I want to avoid adultery.

I’m sorry I won’t be seeing Adam as much, but I do need to get back to my writing. A deadline looms in the not-so-distant future. I’m learning the hard way that deadlines don’t help me. They stress me out and then I have a hard time imagining, letting my brain loose to weave the story. My plots peter out when I’m stressed, which will probably be most of the time for the next, say, six or eight months. How long does a divorce take, anyway?

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”

I can’t exactly tell him I’m worrying about writer’s block, since I haven’t told him I’m a writer. “I’m hoping you have sour cream for those potatoes.”

“Yeah, right.”

Guess I didn’t have that will work for sour cream look on my face.

“I’ve got wine, and I know it’s not too early for you to drink. Want some?” Drawn-together brows tell me Adam is not pleased I didn’t come clean with him. Conversely, I’m not pleased he can tell I’m holding out. Isn’t there a class at a college or something, maybe an online tutorial, to teach people like me to lie? I don’t like lying, but sometimes knowing how would sure come in handy, and I really suck at it.

“I rode my bike this morning before I went down to the office,” he tells me, as he’s pouring chablis. “I happened to see a huge vase of red roses going in your front door.” His mouth is a thin line of restraint when he pushes me my glass.

“Were you spying?” I snap.

He looks at me with his lips pressed together. “No, I was letting you know why I thought you were avoiding me earlier when I saw you walking home. So you didn’t think I was a jerk.”

Now I feel bad for flying off the handle. I calm my voice to answer. “It would take a lot more than red roses to make me forgive Mike for what he’s done. I may be a push-over about some things, but don’t ever think I’m that soft.” I’ll never be soft inside again, after what Mike’s done to me. “If I had it in me to forgive him, I doubt I would’ve been out flirting with a stranger on Thanksgiving Day. Despite the way I’ve behaved, or misbehaved with you, Adam, it’s not my style. I’ve never so much as kissed another man during my marriage. Never wanted to.”

His brows raise suggestively, reminding me I kissed him.

Rolling my eyes, I tip back my glass and drink deeply. “Before you.”

It would be dangerous to tell him everything is different with him. And maybe I would have flirted with him when I met him, even if Mike hadn’t screwed up. There’s something about Adam, a feeling, a compulsion I can’t seem to resist.

I really hate being cross with him, but this is such a difficult situation right now. He’s going to be worrying every day and night that I’ll cave and take Mike back, that he’s seen the last of me. And I’ll resent him not trusting me, but why should he? All he knows of me is I’m married and sneaking around to see him! It’s a waiting game of epic emotions.

“I never kissed a married woman who wasn’t my wife, before you,” he reveals.

My jaw drops and he makes a speedy exit to pull the steaks from the grill. He was married before? Of course he was. How could a guy this hot still be single? I never asked about that when we were playing the tell-me-about-you game Friday. I saw no ring on his finger and left it at that.

He returns and plates our lunch, and I’m still struggling to keep my cool. I finally have to ask, “You’re not married now?”

His stone-cold glare tells me I’ve offended him.

Okay, he’s single. That’s a relief. Hah! Only one of us is bound legally and morally to someone else forever. Then, when we’re both at the table with our food, “You’re divorced?” It would be nice if he’d fill in the blanks.

He looks off out the window, then shrugs his shoulders as if it’s the first time he thought of it that way. “Yeah.”

There’s no way I’m speaking again, until he finishes explaining.

He figures it out, and continues. “She was a girl I’d known since we were kids. Our families still bump elbows now and then. She decided she was bored with me and moved on. Now she’s married into a Georgia family with old money. Sugar plantations and all that.”

“Bored with you, huh? What, are you some kinda corpse in bed?” I’m already laughing when his eyes widen and his mouth falls open. “A joke, sheesh. ‘Old money,’ you say? I think you should know, I come from a family of CTMF money.”

He smiles when he asks, “CTMF?”

“Checking the Mail For.”

His dimples come out to play, but it’s his eyes that light up his face, and my heart. How could anyone get bored with him?

“So what was the duration of this colossal failure to keep Ms. Old Money entertained?”

“Just under a year.”

“Shit, you must be really boring.”

He reaches below the table and grabs my foot, pulls off my shoe, and starts tickling. How do guys sense ticklishness? I’m extremely ticklish, virtually everywhere, which he soon discovers when I fall off my chair and he kneels and pins me, tickling my ribs with one hand, and my knee with the other.

I’m trying to wiggle away, but laughing so hard, thoughts are hard to keep coming in a steady thread.

He throws one leg over and sits on me, and stops tickling, giving me time to catch my breath.

“Take it back,” he commands, knowing he, The Tickler, exerts one hundred percent of the power over me, The Tickled. He tickles me a bit more, to play up his position of control.

“Okay!” I gasp.

“Okay what?” He’s gonna make me say it, so I decide to be obnoxious and embellish.

“I take it back. I’d never be bored with you. How could she look at your dimples and be bored? If you were mine, I’d do nothing but gaze, awestruck, into your eyes all day. I’d become a shut-in because I couldn’t quit kissing you long enough to leave the house.”

The triumphant, self-satisfied smile he was wearing has faded, and he’s looking very serious now. All my other silly, sappy taunts melt away from my tongue. His face lowers toward mine, and I want him so much it hurts.

In a raspy, sensual voice I seldom have–maybe lying on my back is giving it a nicer timbre–I repeat my question from Friday. “You wanta be my revenge?” It halts him, like I’d hoped. Not because I wanted him to stop, but because I want him to be more than my revenge.

He stands and offers me a hand up, which I accept warily.

Will there be more tickling? The power may have gone to his head.

“Eat your steak, smartass.” The words are stern, but they come with a playful yank of my hair. The rest of the meal is fun and sweet, and, we both know, all too short. He tells me he has a younger sister who fell victim to his tickling nearly every day of her childhood. She lives in Denver with her husband.

After the steak and potatoes are gone, Adam pulls out a cheesecake. His eyes sparkle at my obvious pleasure. I’m thrilled with the cheesecake, naturally, but even more pleased he remembered it was my favorite. His thoughtfulness is as sweet as the dessert.

Before I leave, I scribble my email address on a notepad near his phone. With a “Bye, Ferris!” cast over my shoulder, I drive home in high spirits.