Doublecrossed (3 page)

*

The hours passed with Callie doing nothing more than going over and over the last year and a half. How had they gotten here? Had Marina lied about everything?

She hadn’t eaten, and her stomach was empty and sour. Marina’s betrayal was just starting to reach the rational part of her brain, and she had to stop before it knocked her to her knees. She was so sad and lonely. Bracingly lonely. She didn’t want to be alone for another minute, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone either…especially anyone who knew Marina. So she put her shoes on, combed her hair and quickly washed her face, then drove to her favorite local bar.

Talking would only have made things worse, so she was relieved to see no one that she knew. Ordering a beer and a burger, she sat at the far end of the bar, waiting for her food. After a few minutes a woman approached and tentatively asked, “Mind if I join you?”

Callie snapped out of her fog and saw a woman who’d previously caught her eye a couple of times. “Uhm, sure, but I’m not very good company tonight.”

“Something wrong?” the woman asked, signaling the bartender for a beer. “I’m Linda, by the way.”

“Hi. Callie. Nice to meet you.” She took a sip of her beer. “I just found out my girlfriend cheated on me.”

“Ooo. Every time I’ve seen you here you’ve been with a group. I thought you were single.”

“No, I’m not…at least not yet. That might change. Soon.”

“Well, I don’t want to wish you bad luck, but…” Linda smiled, her face made all the more attractive by a warm, somewhat shy expression.

Taking another drink, Callie surveyed the woman quickly. She was just her type and she knew she could easily take the woman home without a twinge of guilt. But she also knew she’d be doing it to even things up between her and Marina. And she would never, ever use another woman like that. “I’d love to hang out if I wind up single. But tonight…well, tonight I don’t know what in the heck I am.”

*

By the time she got home Marina had called her fifteen times. She’d also sent an e-mail, obviously written on her PDA while waiting at the airport.

Callie,

I don’t have a good excuse for what I did. I know it was wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time. All I can say is that I screwed up and I’m sorry. I know that isn’t much, but it’s all I have.

I don’t know if it matters, but I don’t have feelings for Angela. She’s just a co-worker, a co-worker I let myself believe I had to make happy. I know how stupid that sounds now, but that night it seemed like my only option.

I didn’t think of it as cheating, even though it obviously was. It didn’t seem like it because I didn’t think it would put our relationship at risk, and that’s the basis of our agreement, right?

Angela lives a thousand miles away, she’s in a relationship, and she’s a co-worker. I’m not seriously attracted to her and I know she feels the same about me. For her it was just a way to blow off some steam after a mind-fuck of a client dinner. For me it was a way to make sure I hadn’t wasted the last 3 years of my career.

The facts don’t excuse what I did, and they certainly don’t make it any less hurtful for you, I’m sure. But I want you to know what happened, for what it’s worth.

I love you, Callie, and I desperately want your forgiveness. Please give me the chance to explain this all better.

Marina.

She looked at the note for a long time, but realizing how detached she felt, knew she was wasting her time. Time she could have spent in bed, where the big, fluffy pillows were practically calling her name.

*

After twelve hours of a near-coma, Callie finally dragged herself out of bed. She tried to go about her day, but it took an hour to manage a shower and a bowl of cereal. Making coffee was out of the question. It was too complex for the brainpower she had available. She surprised herself a little by picking up the phone and making a call.

“Dad?”

“Hi.” He sounded sunny and wide awake. “What’s up?”

“Can I come see you?”

“I’m playing golf at one, but…I can cancel. Is everything all right? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I’ve heard that a couple of times in the last day or so.”

“Let me come to your place. I’m playing golf not too far from you.”

“Okay. If you don’t mind.”

“I’ll be there in a half hour.”

Callie sniffled with the certainty that her father’s love was one thing she never doubted. He had his faults, plenty of them, but she knew he loved her.

*

They’d been talking a long while when Jeff Emerson leaned back in his chair, looking more than a little stunned. “I’ve gotta say, you’ve given me a bagful of information here, Chicklet, and it’s gonna take some time to sort through it all.”

“I know it’s weird talking about sex, but I just had to unload and I don’t have anyone else I trust as much as I do you. Are you really sure you don’t mind?”

Jeff shook his head, his pale, straight hair moving around his head when he did. “No, no, not at all. My friends all complain that their kids never tell them anything important.” He scratched the back of his neck, shyly grinning at his daughter. “Maybe they should count their blessings.”

“I can talk to Gretchen or Emily about this, Dad. Really.”

He gazed at her for a minute, then shook his head again. “No, if you wanted to talk to them, you would have. Do they know about your…what do you call it?”

She shrugged. “No, they don’t. And we call it our arrangement. Our agreement.”

“They called it swinging when I was your age.”

“No, that’s a different thing. We’re monogamous when we’re in Dallas, but when we’re away from home we can sleep with someone else as long as we get permission. We both have to agree.”

He scratched his neck again, more forcefully this time. He’d never seemed so frazzled. “What’s the difference between that and swinging?”

“Swingers usually bring another couple in to have sex with both of them. We don’t do that.”

“Why? Isn’t this…worse than swinging? At least you’d be together.”

He didn’t get it. It was probably too much to expect him to. “I don’t want to be together and watch her have sex. That would make me sick. What she does on her own time is her business.”

“Right.” He nodded, still looking confused. “You only cheat when you’re out of town.”

“It’s not cheating!” How could he ever understand? “What Marina did was cheat.”

“Okay. Okay. I don’t see how you can cheat when you’re allowed to have sex with strangers whenever you’re out of town, but if it makes sense to you, that’s what matters.”

“It does make sense when we follow the rules. It does.” That sounded like begging. She had to show she was convinced for him to buy in.

“This has worked for you? Until now?”

“Yeah. It has.”

“And you’ve been doing this the whole time?”

“We talked about it before we got together, so yeah.”

“Is this…uhm…common for…you know…girls like you?”

“I think it’s more common for guys like you.” She wished she could have prevented that last sentence from leaving her mouth, but it was out. Maybe it was time. She reached out and grasped his hand, squeezing it. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just think more straight couples have open relationships than lesbians. I think it’s harder for women to get their heads around it.” Pain etched his features and she hurried to add, “I know you regret what you did.”

“Worst thing I’ve done in my life,” he said for what Callie estimated was the thousandth time. “I thought I was just having a discreet little fling, but it cost me my family and my whole way of life.” He sank down in the sofa, looking utterly defeated. “If it hadn’t been for you and Emily, I think I would have ended it all.”

That would have been just perfect. Having him leave the house almost killed her. What would have happened if he’d killed himself. She couldn’t stand even the thought. She got up and sat next to him, pulling him into a tender hug—the kind he’d given her every night before he was booted out. “Don’t even think about that. We need our dad and I’m darned happy I finally live close enough to see you more often. Emily’s jealous,” she said, showing the happiness sisters seem to get from having something the other doesn’t.

“Gretchen’s not. She doesn’t care if I live or die.”

“That’s not true. She just…she’s just like mom. Things are black or white for her. It’s not just you that she judges. She’s not wild about me being with Marina.”

“Because of the open relationship?”

“No. Because Marina’s a woman.” She chuckled. “It seems that still matters to some people. My narrow-minded sister, for one.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He frowned. “How do you turn your back on family?”

He was so clueless sometimes. How could he ask that question when he’d moved to Dallas—just to escape the bad memories of Phoenix. To save himself from pain, he’d made it worse for them. So much worse. He had called every night to read to her, but that hadn’t make a dent in the loss.

“She hasn’t turned her back on me, she just lectures me about how childish I’m being. She thinks my sexual orientation is a sign of my inability to be in a mature, fully developed relationship. She thinks I’m taking the easy way out.”

“I never should have paid to send her to school to study psychology. She cherry-picks all of the things that support her views and ignores the rest.”

Callie leaned back and looked at him, trying not to dwell on the fact that her father paid for Gretchen to go to a private school, while she had to go to a state university. Even worse, Gretchen had completely wasted the money. She had a degree from a good school and had never worked full time. “That’s remarkably accurate. How do you know so much about her?”

“Just from things you and Emily tell me. She does sound a lot like your mom.”

“Too much. They get together and figure out what to complain about that day. It’s too much.”

“You know, I think I’m a sharp guy, but it just dawned on me why you wanted to talk this over with me.”

“I called because I respect your opinion, Dad.”

He straightened up, assuming his normal posture, looking like the middle-aged systems engineer that he was. Intelligence radiated from his blue eyes, and his gaze was sharp. “Yeah, I know. But I think you’re hoping I can tell you what goes on in a person’s mind to lead him, or her, in this case, to cheat.” His eyes got bigger. “Especially when she practically has carte blanche to sleep with whoever she wants to.”

“It’s not quite that broad of an agreement, but she certainly has a lot of freedom.”

“If I’d had just a snippet of that I’d still be with your mother.”

“Yeah, you probably would. But for mom to give you a little leeway would have killed her. She’s just not the type. Never was…never will be.”

He patted Callie’s knee. “I wish I knew why Marina screwed up, but I still can’t explain why I did it. I wanted a little variety, the opportunity came up and I jumped at it. I knew it was wrong, I knew your mother would never forgive me if she found out, and I did it anyway. A real recipe for disaster.”

Callie wished he would stop admitting he knew how wrong it was. That made it hurt more. Wouldn’t anyone know that?

“Marina certainly didn’t need variety, so that’s not it. She claims it just happened—that she didn’t stop to think.”

“That’s kind of what happened with me, honey. I could make a case for how the woman chased me for months and kept making offers that I had a harder and harder time refusing. But it wasn’t her fault. I was married and I gave in to temptation. No excuses.”

Callie chewed on her lower lip, something she’d been doing all day, even though it now felt raw and swollen. Her father didn’t make excuses, but what good did that do? The years they’d been a thousand miles apart weighed on her mind. No matter how much he’d tried, he couldn’t make it seem like he was there for them. Thank God they’d had the last year and a half to really get close again. Being nearby had made all the difference. It was clear he was a good man who’d screwed up once and had paid a dear price. Through it all he’d never said a bad word about her mother. That said a lot about his character.

“I’d like to move out before she gets home. I know I’ll never get the straight story out of her.”

“Do you really know that?”

She shrugged, looking away from his pointed gaze. “I dunno. I thought I knew when she was lying. I didn’t.”

“You’ve invested over a year of your life with her. Spending a few hours hearing her out doesn’t sound like too big a commitment, does it?”

Reluctantly, she said, “No, I suppose not. But it makes me sick to think of looking into her lying eyes.”

“But you don’t mind her sleeping with other women…”

He trailed off when she gave him a sharp look. How could she explain this? There was a big difference between sex and love. Marina needed extra sex. Case closed.

He tried again, phrasing the question differently. “Isn’t this just another woman she’s having sex with?”

“Technically, but it’s different. It’s very different. She lied, Dad. She cheated.”