Love.com (22 page)

“I’m just sitting here,” Emily replied brightly. “You come here often?”

The little boy sat in the seat of the swing and shook his head. “Not so much anymore since my dad left. My mom works a lot. My grandma brings me here sometimes, but she’s sick. My dad said she can’t get out of bed. I miss her. My mom and her don’t get along. She won’t let me go see her.” The boy’s lip jutted out after his informative narrative of his present situation. She felt hope, knowing the mom could probably use the money she knew her agency would pay for the use of the photo.

“Where does your mom work?”

“She’s a waitress at Poole’s bar. She has another job during the day cleaning houses.”

“Who are you here with?” Emily looked around, seeing no adult nearby. The boy was no more than eight
. He should have been in school at this time of morning.

“I came by myself,” he confided and looked at her with a worried expression. “I didn’t get on the
bus. You won’t tell I cut school, will you?”

“No, I’m cutting work myself,” Emily said in a conspiratorial whisper. “You don’t tell on me; I won’t tell on you. Deal?”

“Deal,” he said and smiled in relief. “My mom would kill me.”

“What’s your name?”

“Andy,” he said and his expression looked inquisitive. “What’s yours?”

“Emily.
Well Andy, since you’re keeping my secret, I should treat you to a snow cone. Why don’t I give you some money and you go get us each one?”

The little boy ran off with the three dollars in the direction of the vendor’s cart. Emily felt a surge of relief to know she found the boy. The grandmother was sick, by the sounds of it. She would go to Poole’s bar that night and approach the mother. Surely a woman working two jobs needed the extra cash? She felt little satisfaction in meeting the deadline, having no one to share
it with. Ian was gone. A lump formed in her throat to know he didn’t feel the same for her; would never feel the same.

Emily might have felt as any other woman might have just then, foolish, used, rejected, and several other descriptions came to mind while she waited for Andy to get back. She didn’t expect to feel
this numb, this cold inside. Ian’s rejection caused something in her to finally snap and give into the apathy. Now she didn’t believe in the magic of love anymore. The fabled ‘one’ was something she’d been programmed with since trying on her first training bra, as Ian once said. Realizing she was a fool to ever think she would her soul mate made her determined to think of Ian no longer. He made it clear last night meant nothing to him. Thinking of it made her even more pathetic; more like she was the day before. She changed as soon as those cold words tore her heart apart. His reminder of how messed up she was made her seethe with shame. She had gone off the deep end. Maybe there was still hope? Maybe she needed to go see a therapist as Joan begged her to?

Or maybe, just maybe, in his callous, thoughtless manner, Ian Sawyer cured her and ended whatever
delusions she was suffering from. It took getting her heart annihilated to realize how lost she was, how much she needed to deal with this pain before it destroyed her.

Emily hung out with Andy for a better part of the day. She called in sick to Janice, claiming the cramps sent her home. Evan didn’t want her back until she quit ‘blowing blood’, as he called it. She dropped Andy at his bus stop and went home a different person than when she left. She felt a calm she hadn’t felt in months. She cleaned up from the night before, washing her sheets, not wanting any reminders of Ian. She was certain she would never see him again.

Emily was wistful of it, felt a slight pang in her heart, and refused to feel badly for allowing herself to fall so hard for him. She found anything to keep herself occupied that day, even went through some old boxes of Eddie’s in the garage. She came across a box of trading cards and set them aside. She knew Jay used to be in the business of buying and selling baseball cards. He might know if any of them were worth anything.  

She met Joan at the gym, worked out like a champ, and avoided her friend’s pointed questions about her new man. She said he wasn’t the one
after all. They left it at that. Even if she didn’t believe in ‘the one’ anymore, it was enough to get Joan off her back. She felt bad for never sharing her experience with Ian with her now that it was over. Joan would have hated Ian after hearing his thoughts about relationships. Maybe it was better nobody knew but her how awful it felt to be rejected by a guy she never even dated? Imagine getting dumped by someone you were never really involved with? That was the funny part. They had nothing between them but her feelings and one night of good sex. It shouldn’t be hard to put it behind her with a little effort.

Emily went home, not surprised to turn on her computer and see she had nearly
one hundred unread emails on Love.com. She removed the phony picture of herself and did a little bit of editing here and there. By the time she was done, she was once more herself again.

She deleted all the emails and decided to start over
fresh. The beauty of Love.com was that she could do that with the click of her mouse. Real life was far different. There was no changing what happened the night before, or even make her feel better about it. It was time she face the truths as she had invented all the lies. It was time to deal with Eddie’s ghost.

~
~ ~

Joan stared at her in shock after
listening to what she had to say. For the first time her friend was rendered speechless. Her friend reached for her wine, unable to respond to what she told her. Emily took pity on her and refilled her glass as she did her own.

“Are you ok about this, Emily?”

“Yeah, I think I didn’t want to face it these last months,” Emily said sadly and sipped her wine. “I think anybody in my shoes would feel the same.”

“That cocksucker! I mean…geez
! He really was a cocksucker, Em! Christ, I expected you to tell me he was running away with another woman, not a goddamned man! Oh shit! No wonder you went nuts for awhile! Wow! You deserve all the UPS guys, all the Fed Ex guys, even the Geek Squad! Holy shit!” Joan recovered from her shock to rant on how she didn’t see it coming all those years. That made two of them. Eddie hid is desire for men from everyone. Emily never had a clue her husband was gay. She didn’t know the name of the man he was in love with, planning to leave her for, before he got sick. It didn’t matter anymore. Eddie realized how he’d short-changed them both during his illness. Getting sick must have made him question his decision to run away from her to be with the other man.

“Do you know who he is? The boyfriend, I mean?” Joan looked disgusted. “It could have been anybody. Right under your nose! What a cocksucker!”

“Will you please quit saying that?” Emily sighed and sipped her wine. “I don’t want to know. Does it even matter? The guy bailed on him when he found out he was sick. He said he couldn’t take that on and he should stay with me. Can you believe that? It’s sad, really. Eddie was going to give everything up for this guy. In the end, he didn’t love Eddie enough to watch him die.”

“If I found out my husband of nearly ten years was gay; I’d be a mess,” Joan remarked and shook her head
, eyes blazing with ire. “I knew something was wrong with you. I never imagined this. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Not facing it made it not true,” Emily revealed with a grimace. “I didn’t want to face my whole life was a lie.”

“So you lied just to cover it up?” Joan laughed sadly and shook her head. “Emily, it’s not your fault the guy turned gay on you. It happens. He was probably gay from day one and wouldn’t face it. My guess is he married you just to pretend he wasn’t.”

“Eddie had his reasons
for staying in the closet. I’ll never know them. I just wanted you to know the truth. I didn’t like keeping it from you.”

“Are you going to go see somebody and deal with this
finally? You need to talk about this! I know you think you have it dealt with, but this has to make you nuts. Any woman would freak out to find out this kind of thing, Em. You see it on Jerry Springer every week.”

Emily looked away, not wanting to explore therapy just yet. She was making progress on her own. “Can I say I’ll consider it?”

“I’m there for you, Em. Just don’t keep things from me anymore. This is definitely only a story a girlfriend could appreciate.  I can’t even imagine how you must have felt when you found out. I think I would have understood if it had been a woman he was screwing around with. This gay thing is quite beyond me.” Joan looked incensed to realize she couldn’t relate to Eddie’s preference at all, or understand how it got by her radar all these years.  

“I was his wife,” Emily reminded her and sighed
tiredly. “I didn’t have the slightest clue. How do you think I felt?”

“Not even one clue? Seriously?
At least tell me the guy was a little light in the load, anything, Em?”

“He didn’t dress up in my clothes, Joan, or stare at men’s assess! I didn’t know!
I’m sorry but Eddie was pretty good at hiding what he was from everyone. I didn’t find out until I found the letter.”

Joan looked dumbfounded. “
I’m going to have to take up golfing. No way will I let John leave me for a damned gay guy! Now you have to worry about guys taking your man too! Goddamn it! It’s just not fair!”

Emily giggled at Joan’s words, knowing John Stein would never turn gay in a million years. He adored Joan. She had nothing to worry about. Imagining her
friend elbowing the golf pro away from her husband during a lesson made her smile long after Joan left to meet John for dinner. It was Friday night. She logged into MapQuest and groaned to realize Poole’s bar was on the crappiest side of town. She had no choice. She had to meet Andy’s mother and work out a deal or clean out her desk at work.

Emily
dressed in jeans and a simple top, realizing she didn’t have to go to any trouble to look hot on that side of town. She didn’t want to analyze she was deliberately avoiding things again, but Ian was on her mind more than a little that night. He was back in Chicago by now. She could imagine every headhunter in the country was circling him. Upon closer examination, he did the right thing resigning. Ambidor would have ruined his future employment with anyone else, seeing him as a threat.

Still, the way
Ian went about dumping her hurt. She thought they were friends, if not lovers. Apparently the friendship ended when they went to bed together. So much for being friends with a man, Emily reminded herself as she collected her purse and keys. No, that wasn’t fair to Ian. He didn’t ask for her feelings. He was just the man she was in love with from the moment she met him, before she realized how damaged he was. She would never make that mistake again.

Poole’s was
the dive she feared. She pulled into the bar parking lot and questioned what she was doing there. She was saving her own ass, she reminded herself as she got out of the car. The patrons were blue collar, loud, and listened to country music. Great! A hot spot she’d pass onto the girls at work, for sure.

Emily
walked in and coughed from the thick acrid cigarette smoke that nearly suffocated her. She squinted through the smoke to see three barmaids worked that night. One of them was too old to be Andy’s mother. One was too young, she realized upon closer inspection. The third was just right, and had the same bright hair as her son. This turned out to be easier than she thought.

Emily sat in the woman’s section and waited to be served, ignoring the loud, raucous group of men nearby and their comments about her; concentrating on her mission. The redhead wandered over eventually, looking sullen
as she stood in front of her. It was obvious Andy’s mother wasn’t cut out to be a barmaid in this hellhole. She seemed to wear a look of despair in her pale green eyes.  She was pretty and about Emily’s same age.

“What can I get you?” She looked at Emily with a raised
tawny eyebrow.

“Can I have
a glass of white wine, please?”

“Lady, does this place look like
it has white wine? Are you for real? Try crappy red wine; and it sucks! We use it to disinfect the floors when we run out of cleaner. Still want it?” The redhead shook her head in disgust.

“How about a beer?” Emily hated beer but that was all that was on the menu.
Crappy red wine had no further appeal to her.

“What kind of beer?”
The redhead was growing exasperated. “You want me to list all the beers we sell?”

“Whatever is the best, I guess,” Emily said
meekly and smiled in what she hoped was a friendly manner. “I haven’t ever been here before.”

“
Bud it is, and welcome to Poole’s.” She stomped away to retrieve the beer, leaving Emily to deal with the drunks who catcalled from a nearby table.

“Hey baby! You want
some company tonight?” The redneck laughed and showed he had few teeth.
Lovely dental plan
, Emily thought, and promptly ignored him.

The redhead returned and slapped down a longneck Budweiser. “That’ll be four dollars.”

Emily gave her a ten and told her to keep the change. That seemed to soften the redhead’s grumpy attitude. Obviously she didn’t get many tips at Poole’s. Emily realized she’d have to drink the beer to get the redhead back to her table. She drank it, forcing it down, wondering how Eddie could have swilled the hideous stuff. When she was finished, she signaled her waitress. The redhead came back, taking her empty and serving her another longneck, regarding her with a more friendly expression when she tipped her again.