Every Woman's Dream (17 page)

Chapter 28

Joan

 

I
T WAS HARD FOR ME TO BELIEVE THAT
I
WAS NOW THIRTY YEARS OLD
. It was even harder for me to believe that I was still with Reed.

Even though I was still a young woman, I felt old. Life was passing me by and I didn't like it. I was not going to wait too much longer before I did something about it. Years ago I had considered having an affair. But I'd put if off because I hadn't been able to find the right man in the bars, parties, and other social gatherings I'd attended back then. I'd even flirted with a bank teller at Citibank until he invited me to have lunch with him. When I told him over Whoppers and fries in the Burger King across the street from the bank that I was married to a dentist, all he suddenly wanted to talk about was his financial problems. He was so brazen, he had the nerve to tell me he hoped I'd be able to help him out from time to time. “Just a few dollars now and then, baby.” I had no desire to be some broke-ass man's sugar mama back then, or now. I started going to a different branch of Citibank to do our banking, but I kept looking for the right man.

A few days later, a handsome dude in a suit approached me on a busy street downtown. I told him I was married, but he still insisted on giving me his telephone number and told me he wanted to get to know me. When I called his number that night to see when he wanted to get together, a woman answered. Thinking she was his mother or some other female relative, I told her the reason for my call. She cut me off in the middle of a sentence, cussing and threatening to kill me if she ever caught me with her husband. I couldn't get another word in edgewise, so I abruptly hung up.

After that fiasco with the lonely hearts club, I had no desire to get involved with another woman's husband. I kept looking and it took a couple more months before I came across another man I liked enough to cheat on Reed with. He was the son of one of my stepfather's friends. Before we could get together alone, I found out he was addicted to crack cocaine and had just come out of rehab for the second time in the same year. I wasted no time scratching him off my list.

I gave up on finding a lover and my life went on, more miserable than ever.

Despite everything I had, I was too unhappy for words. I was so bored and dissatisfied with Reed I wanted to scream. Our marriage had gradually become so stale, I could barely stand it. We hardly ever went out anymore, and some days we went for hours without speaking to one another. We had so little in common with each other's relatives and friends, we didn't have many visitors and we rarely visited anybody together. That was how we managed to hide how bad things were between us. But it was hard to hide too many things from Junior.

“Mama, how come you and Daddy don't talk no more?” he asked. The three of us occupied the same living-room couch, watching
Toy Story
on DVD. Other than when I yelled at the characters on the TV screen, Junior was the only one I had spoken to in the last two hours.

Reed sat on one end of the couch; I sat on the other. Junior, who was a little pudgy for a twelve-year-old, sat squeezed between us. He was only half-watching the program and fiddling with some baseball cards at the same time.

Reed and I glanced at each other at the same time. I blinked. He scratched the back of his head. Even though my son had directed his question to me, it was Reed who responded. “Your mommy and I do enough talking when you're not around,” he said with a weak chuckle.

His answer wasn't enough for Junior. Not only was my son big for his age, but he was inquisitive for his age too. He turned to me, tugging on the sleeve of my blouse. “You don't hug and stuff no more, either, like you used to when I was a little boy.”

“Honey, your daddy and I are still very much in love. But as adults get older, they show their feelings in different ways.”

“What ways?” Junior asked, looking so confused I felt sorry for him.

Just before I was about to offer another feeble response, the telephone rang and somebody knocked on the front door at the same time. Reed leaped up to go answer the door and I leaned over to pick up the telephone on the stand at the end of the couch.

Brandon Martin, the airline pilot who lived next door, had come to advise Reed to put his brand-new Lexus in the garage. It was street-cleaning night, which meant no parking on the street between the hours of seven and nine. That got Reed out of the house and I was sure he was relieved. Brandon was rather long-winded, so I knew he'd detain him for at least ten minutes. The telephone call that had saved me from making a fool of myself in front of my son was from Too Sweet. She wanted to remind me to bring the extra bottle of bath salts I had promised to bring to the house on my next visit. To keep her talking, I asked about everybody
individually
in the house at the time, which was quite a mob. By the time I got to the sixth person, my sister Marguerite's best friend, Nancy Dixon, Too Sweet could stand no more. “Look, Joan. I don't have time to sit here all night.
Everybody
is doing all right. So let me get off this phone.”

A few seconds later, Reed came back inside, but he didn't return to the living room. He went to our bedroom, where he stayed for the rest of the night.

I was apprehensive about tucking my son in for the night because I was afraid he'd say something else about me and Reed. But he didn't and I breathed a sigh of relief. I rushed out of his room as quickly as I could and returned to the living room, where I leafed through a stack of recent family photos of just myself, Reed, and Junior. We all looked so happy. But I didn't know how much longer I could keep up my part of the act. Had it not been for my precious son, I probably would have lost my mind by now. He was the glue that held the family together. But a young boy could only do so much in such a fragile situation.

An hour after I had made sure Junior was in bed and not playing around on his new computer, I peeked in on Reed. He was snoring like a bull. I got a blanket and some pillows out of the hallway linen closet and made up a bed for myself on the living-room couch.

I wanted to have several more children, but there was no way in the world I was going to have another baby with Reed. Our marriage had been on life support for a long time and I thought about pulling the plug, more and more, with each new day.

 

So far, Lola was the only person I had confided in.

“I don't know why you stay in a relationship that makes you so miserable,” she told me during happy hour at Tiny's Bar, a hole-in-the-wall of a building in the same block where she worked. It was a Thursday evening, a week after the awkward conversation with my son. I had not called her first to let her know I was coming. But when I showed up at her work a few minutes before she clocked out, she was happy to see me, anyway, and eager to go join me for a few drinks and some of the delicious complimentary fried chicken wings “Tiny” served if you bought at least one drink. In less than an hour, we were already on our third drinks.

I had nibbled on only two of the wings in the basket on our table while Lola gobbled them up, left and right, and signaled for the waiter to bring another basket. We still weighed about the same, but a few things on my body had shifted. She was still as firm as ever and rarely worked out. I had not done much to stay in shape during my pregnancy. Now I had to work hard and eat right to look good in my clothes.

Lola kept chewing like a rabbit, but her eyes got big when I responded to her comment. “You're a fine one to talk! At least I'm in a miserable relationship with a man. You're in a miserable relationship with your stepmother. You could have married Maurice and be living God knows where in the world by now.”

“I'm dating regularly, so I'll eventually meet someone I can work on a future with. And you're also a ‘fine one to talk.' You told me that you and Reed go for weeks without having sex. Knowing what a ‘hot mama' you are, that must drive you crazy.” Lola laughed but I didn't find her comment funny.

“Sometimes we do ‘go for weeks without having sex.'”

“That's what I just said.”

“That doesn't mean
I
go for weeks without having sex, Lola.”

“I'm not sure your masturbation sessions count,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“That's not what I'm talking about. . . .”

A digital camera couldn't have captured the look of disbelief on Lola's face. You had to see it in person to believe. “Lord have mercy,” she mouthed. “Are you going to confess to me that you're having an affair?” I could tell from the amused look on her face that she didn't think I was serious. It took only a few seconds for her to realize how serious I was.

I sniffed and smoothed down the sides of the fresh hairdo I had treated myself to at the beauty shop a few hours ago. I took my time responding. “Something like that . . .” I stopped talking and looked in Lola's eyes and winked.

That made her mouth drop open so wide I could see bits and pieces of chicken on her tongue. “Woman, don't you dare go silent on me now. If you are getting it on with another man, you'd better tell me. I know you too well, so I'll know if you're lying or not telling me everything.” Lola had no idea that she was about to find out she didn't know me as well as she thought.

“Yep! This woman is ‘getting it on' and on, and on some more,” I quipped. It took a few moments for her to react to my words.

Her hand froze in midair with another chicken wing inches in front of her mouth. “Did you just say what I think you said? You're having an affair?”

I nodded.

“You little devil.” Lola dropped her piece of chicken back into the basket and took a long drink from her wineglass. After a mild belch, she continued. “I should have known something was going on with you. The way you've been smiling and glowing these past few weeks. Reed was right! You're involved with another man. Is it somebody I know?”

“Well, it's not just
a
man. . . .”

“There's more than one?”

I had planned to tell Lola sooner or later the dirty little secret I had been keeping from her, and now seemed like a good time. “I've been visiting some dating sites.” I heard Lola suck in some air, but I didn't give her time to respond. “I should have done it years ago, but I kept putting it off, hoping things would improve between Reed and me. I eventually got so frustrated I changed my mind and jumped on the bandwagon, so to speak. I spent hours on my computer the first night. I didn't bother with any of the mushy sites like eHarmony and ChristianMingle. They cater to people who are interested in serious relationships or marriage. The sites I'm focusing on are for people who are interested
only
in casual, no-strings-attached sexual relationships with like-minded people.”

“
You?
You're looking for a man on the Internet?”

“Why not? And don't sound so surprised. I'm talking about a little bedroom activity now and then, not a walk on the moon.”

“When did you start doing this?”

“I started Googling the sites last month. I've already . . . uh, met some really hot men online,” I confessed with a shy smile. “Really nice, good-looking, professional dudes with good reputations who have some of the same frustrations I have.” I was not prepared for the loud groan that came out of Lola's mouth and the bug-eyed look that appeared on her face. I folded my arms. “Don't sit there looking at me like I just turned into a pillar of salt. Say what you want to say, so I can say what I want to say,” I challenged.

The waiter set another basket of wings on our table. I casually plucked one out and bit into it while Lola stared at me with her mouth hanging open again. She closed her mouth and shook a finger in my face. “Are you the same woman who told me she was going to be more serious in her marriage than her mama and her sisters and half of her other female relatives?”

“I'm the same woman,” I replied with a shrug.

“What's the matter with you? Don't you read the newspapers and watch the news? People are getting into all kinds of trouble with people they meet in chat rooms and whatnot. You're the one who told me about that ‘Craigslist Killer,' the one they made a Lifetime Channel movie about!”

“Calm down,” I advised, holding up my hand. “Don't get all crazy on me.”

“I know Internet dating works for a lot of people, but I don't think I'm brave enough to do it . . . yet. ”

“You can think what you want. That Craigslist Killer went after prostitutes. Most of the women I've read about who got in trouble with men they met online were also involved in prostitution and all kinds of other shady shit, drugs, robbery, and scams, to name a few.”

“Speaking of ‘scams,' what about the mess we got ourselves into with those old men in that lonely hearts club?”

“We were stupid teenagers, remember? And there is a huge difference between what we did back then and what I'm doing now. I'm not taking money from the men I hook up with. Like I said, I'm dealing with professional, respectable men with good reputations. Most of them are married. I feel safer with them than I would a man I met in a bar or anyplace else these days. My new friends have a lot to lose if they do something stupid.”

“Joan, don't be naïve. Just because a man's a professional this or that and is married, it doesn't mean he can't also be a psycho. What about that big case in Oakland a few years ago? That computer big shot who killed his wife and buried her in a shallow grave? What about that doctor in Santa Barbara who chopped up his wife and dumped her body parts in three different cities? And must I remind you that Ted Bundy was a law student? Don't you talk to me about professional men being safer. You can't be that gullible.”