Beautiful Illusions (40 page)

St.Nick80: If she does blame you, then she isn't being rational.

Ry1979: I have held back asking her to marry me until she gets better. I hope I finally get the chance.

St.Nick80: You will.

Ry1979: I love her so much. My heart is breaking.

St.Nick80: Buddy, you need a break from all of this. Why don't you come on vacation with Rielle and the girls and me? We are heading out to the Lake Como house in a week.

Ry1979: Thanks, but there’s no way I can leave her. I have to protect her.

St.Nick80: Maybe she can come too.

Ry1979: Maybe. I think she’s afraid to meet you, though.

St.Nick80: I don't bite. Well, except for that one time. LOL.

Ry1979: Ha ha.

St.Nick80: Seriously, man, I miss you. If you know what I mean.

Ry1979: To tell you the truth I miss you too. If you know what I mean.

St.Nick80: I’ve been having steamy fantasies about you lately. Wanna hear?

Ry1979: Not in the mood right now for cybersex
. Maybe some other time.

St.Nick80: Sorry, just trying to take your mind off of her.

Ry1979:  Impossible. She’s all I think about anymore.

St.Nick80: Keep trying to get her into counseling.

Ry1979: How do I do that? She won't go.

St.Nick80: Be persistent. That's all you can do.

I stopped reading after this. I was losing him, and, worse yet, I was losing myself. I was a shell of myself. No spirit, afraid to leave the house, not eating, sleeping all the time. I realized how depressed I was.

And I knew what I had to do.

The next day, as we were having breakfast, I casually asked Ryan what Rochelle's last name was. I was making a show of eating the eggs and turkey bacon that was in front of me, although, inside, I felt nauseated by it
. Ryan looked pleased to see me eating, though, so I felt that I had to finish the plate.

Afterwards, however, I discreetly excused myself to use the restroom, and threw up
. His cooking was great, as usual, but I couldn't keep anything down.

Not with the knowledge of what I would be doing that day.

Back to Rochelle, though. “Anderson,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” I looked at him, trying to hide the panic in my eyes. As casually as possible, I announced that I would be going shopping with Debbie, my best girlfriend.

Ryan looked thrilled. “That's wonderful, honey. Do you need some money?” He was obviously happy that I was getting out of the house. It occurred to me that I really hadn't left the house on my own since I have been home.

I shook my head. “No, I, uh, just want to browse. Get out of the house, get some fresh air, get caught up with her life. That sort of thing.”

“Ok, then. What time are you going shopping?”

“In about an hour.”

After I showered, I kissed Ryan goodbye, and I got into the new Volvo and took off. I was shaking and nauseated, and it occurred to me that I should have asked Daniel to drive me. But I didn't want to raise any suspicion on what I was doing. If I asked Daniel to drive me, it would have been a tipoff that I wasn't feeling well enough to drive myself, and Ryan might have insisted on coming along.

But this was something that I knew that I had to do by myself.

I arrived downtown, and found a place to park.

And headed for the county jail.

The county jail was a red building downtown that didn't really look like a county jail from the outside, as it was modern
. Inside, however, the cells were just as one would picture. At least the waiting rooms, where attorneys meet clients, were just as one would picture. I would know, having spent two years going in and out of this jail in my role as a public defender.

I never dreamed that I would be coming to this jail not as an attorney, but as a victim. But here I was.

I walked into the jail, and asked the guard for the cell number for Rochelle Anderson. The guard looked at his roster. “You here as a professional or as a visitor?”

“A professional.” I knew that if I was a visitor, I either couldn't see her if it was not visiting hours, or I would be relegated to talking to her on a phone from behind a plated glass. I wanted neither option.

“You got some ID?”

I handed the guard my Missouri Bar Identification
.

“Please step through the metal detector.
”

I obliged.

I took the elevator to the fifth floor, which was where she was housed. I went down the corridor to the attorney room, which is where attorneys meet with their clients, and the door opened automatically. I could see the guard in her booth, and I walked into the vestibule right behind another automatic door. I looked at the guard expectantly, and she pressed a button so that the other door opened, and I walked through.

I sat down at a
little table with a file in my hand and waited. I brought an empty file to make it look like I was there as an attorney.

I waited for about fifteen minutes, before addressing the guard at the station. “Uh, I am here to see Rochelle Anderson.”

The guard looked puzzled. “Did they call this in from downstairs?”

“I thought so.”

“Is she expecting you?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Ok, then.” I saw her get on the phone and call. I held my breath, hoping against hope that there wasn't a problem of some sort. If they told me to come back, I really didn't think that I would. It was literally now or never.

I could hear my heart pounding in my chest as I waited. This was more torture than what Rochelle put me through
. I was shaking like a leaf.

What was taking so long?

The guard motioned me to the window. I wasn't breathing, but let out a sigh of relief when she said that Rochelle was being brought out.

Then I started shaking and trembling anew
. A part of me regretted not bringing Ryan there with me, but this was something that I knew that I had to do on my own.

About fifteen minutes later, with every minute ticking by like an hour, a woman came through the glass door, wearing an orange jumpsuit. She was a slight woman, dark hair, and was not necessarily beautiful but more...handsome. Square jaw, looked to be in her early fifties. I imagined that she was quite a beauty about twenty or so years ago, but she looked ravaged now. Rode hard and put away wet. She appeared to be heavily into drugs.

I stood up, and she looked at me. “You,” was all she said as the door clanged behind her.

I took a deep breath, willing myself not to back down,
and not to beg the guard to take her away. I had to do this for my own mental sanity.

“Yeah, me,” I said.

I watched the guard behind the glass window, who was reading a magazine. Rochelle could literally strangle me, and they would be very slow to react. I wished that she had on handcuffs and leg irons, but I knew that this was not the protocol for professional visits.

She sat down. “May I help you?” Very cold. If I was expecting her to break down crying with regrets upon seeing me, I would be sorely disappointed.

“I wanted to meet you, face to face,” I said, mustering as much strength as I could. I wished at this point that I had invested in acting classes, so that I could act like I didn't care that I was facing her.

“Why?”

“Because I feel that I need to confront you and tell you how you have made me feel. I know that you don't care, but I need to say my piece so that I can move on.”

To my surprise, her expression changed. She didn't look as hostile as when she first sat down
.

I took another deep breath, and began. “I don't know what I did to you to make you want to hurt me. I don't even know you. Why would you do that to me?”

“Listen, Chica, don't take it personally. I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to hurt him.”

“Why hurt him?”

“Didn't I make that clear? He hurt me. He devastated me, in fact.” Her face contorted. “I haven't been able to look at another man since he left. That was twenty-fucking years ago.”

I knew that what I wanted from this encounter was to see the humanity in this woman. That would make her less scary. It might also help me forgive
. So far, it seemed like I was on a good track.

“Go on.”

“What is there to tell? We were in love.” She shook her head. “Nah, that sounds pretty silly right now. He was only 14 at the time. But he told me that he loved me. I guess I believed it.”

“Why would you do that to a 14-year-
old boy?”

“I was mixed up
. My husband was beating me before I left him. My fucking kid went to live with him, willingly. Willingly!” She looked disgusted. “Fucking ungrateful bastard still won't talk to me. Huh. Talk about giving someone life, and in return they give you hell.” Then she smiled. She had a few missing teeth. “I broke my dental bridge in this hellhole in a girl fight,” she explained. I figured that she lost her teeth to meth, which was common.

Then she looked at me. “Ryan had all the qualities my dickwad husband and bastard son didn't. He was kind and loving. Not a mean bone in that boy. And I fell hard for him.
”    

She paused. She looked like she could use a cigarette. “So, well, as I told you, uh, before, I have followed him for years. Surreptitiously, of course. I pretty much hired people to tail him. I knew that he and Alexis would not stay together. My people tailed her, too. That woman got more ass than Dennis Rodman.” She laughed
. “Anyhow, Ryan broke up with her, like I knew that he would, after Alexis and Paul were caught together.” She looked at me. “Paul was one of many, by the way. Ryan was being cuckolded right and left, and had no fucking idea.”

She shook her head. “That is why I am in love with him. He is still so pure, even after all these years. That was why he had no suspicions about his slut wife. He just couldn't imagine that she would do that to him.” Then she smiled slyly. “Of course, he always had his boy on the side. But Alexis knew about that the whole time
. What fun is that?”

She continued. “Anyhow, after Ryan and Alexis broke up, Ryan started dating these women
. These beautiful women. He would go out with a different one every night, I swear. So, I felt safe.”

“Safe?”

“Yeah, safe. Safe that he wasn't settling down, and maybe I still had a chance with him. I was waiting for the right time to make my move.”

Delusional woman. Next stop, Crazytown.
But I let her go on. This was very therapeutic for me.

“Then you came along.” She snorted. “Somehow I knew when he met you that he had found the one
. It was just like Ryan to want to settle down with somebody who is, shall we say....I mean, no offense, but you are not exactly a runway model.”

“No offense taken. Go on.”

“Well, my hunch was right. My people didn't see him juggling one supermodel type after another anymore, he stopped messing around with Nick, and he pretty much settled down with you.” She snorted again. “Not 'pretty much' settled down. He did settle down. All the Giselles and Heidis were gone after you came on the scene.”     

“Were there Heidis and Giselles at the time that he met me?” Now I was curious.

“God, yes. He had a regular rotation going with about five of them. He met you, and they were all gone. Like they were in the witness protection program or something.” She laughed at her own joke.

“Anyhow, I kne
w that he was serious about you,” she continued. “But I still felt that maybe there was a chance that you would go the way of all the others, and I could still get in there, under the wire.”

She shook her head. “But no. He bought you this incredible rock, and I was out of my mind when I found that out.”

She looked me right in the eye. “So I kidnapped and tortured you. I'm not proud of it, but I figured that was the best way to kill him slowly.”

I raised my eyebrows
. She didn't exactly seem filled with remorse. Yet, I was seeing the humanity in her, so I could feel myself relaxing.

After a pause, she asked “So, did I answer all your questions?”

I nodded. “But I said that I wanted to say my piece, so I am going to say my piece. And you are going to listen to it, because where you gonna go?” I looked up at the camera, knowing that what I was saying was being picked up by the guard's station. If Alexis wanted to leave, she could leave. All she had to do was ask.

But she didn't. She stayed rooted to her seat.

I took a deep breath. “You have ruined my life. But I am not going to let you keep ruining my life. I am not going to give you any more satisfaction in telling you how much you hurt me. But know this. Ryan and I are doing great. And, after today, we will be doing even better. Because now I have closure on what you did to me. I needed to confront you, and that is exactly what I did. Confront you. Now I can put this behind me.”