Separating Riches (22 page)

“I can’t. There’s a jogger, Melinda,” she stated, nodding toward a jogger running on the side walk.

“Please, baby. The cramps are really bad now.”

Chris gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turned white. She was murmuring something and then I heard an Amen. I could feel the car accelerate, and I looked at the speedometer. She was doing twenty-five as she passed the jogger. By the time we pulled into our driveway, she was more confident and almost relaxed.

“Okay, let’s get you inside,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“Actually, I’m feeling much better now,” I stated, getting out of the SUV.

“Oh, good, I’m so glad,” Chris said.

“I’m so proud of you,” I said as we walked into the house.

“Proud of me? For what, honey?” she asked.

“For getting behind the wheel and driving us home.”

“You were in pain,” she explained. “I had to get you home.”

“Well… about that,” I hedged. “Now, don’t be mad, okay?”

She looked at me for a moment, and then her eyes opened wide. “Oh, my, God,” she fumed. “You tricked me into driving, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, baby. I did. But it was because I didn’t want you to be afraid anymore. I mean, you faced your biggest fear, which was the man you hit, so this was the next logical step… right?”

“I am so pissed at you right now,” she snapped, and walked away.

Oh, shit!
I ran after her and grabbed her arm. “Please, Chris. I was only trying to help.”

“By tricking me? So then every time you want to try and help me with something, you’ll resort to tricking me. Is that it? Is that how it’s going to be?”

“God, no, that’s not it. Come on, Chris. I was just trying—”

“To help. Yeah, I got that,” she said, walking off with a huff.

“Oh, dear. Are you two fighting again?” Norma asked, as we walked into the living room and sat in separate chairs.

“No, we’re not fighting because I’m not speaking to her,” Chris stated.

“Look, I really did think I was doing a good thing.” I turned to Norma and pleaded my case. “Chris all but panicked at the car dealership today when I suggested she drive Emily’s car over to the college. After all this time, Chris’ anxiety about driving has gotten worse, and I was afraid it was going to be permanent. Honest to God, I was only trying to help her.”

“And obviously you weren’t happy with her wanting to help you, is that it, Chris?” Norma asked.

“No, that’s not it, Norma. I’m not happy with
the way
she helped me,” Chris lamented. “She lied to me. She said she was going to be sick and that I needed to drive her home.”

“A lie to improve your quality of life is not necessarily a bad thing, dear. She was trying to help you to help yourself.”

“Whose side are you on, Norma?” Chris asked.

“I don’t choose sides, dear,” Norma replied. “I choose to see both sides of the coin. You’re upset with Melinda for tricking you, but her ruse wasn’t malicious in nature, so I can only assume that you’re really mad at yourself for needing to be tricked in the first place.”

“I love your double speak, Norma,” I said.

“And you, Melinda,” Norma added.

“Ut oh, here it comes,” I jested lamely.

“Your heart was in the right place, dear, but you did in fact manipulate your wife.”

“I, uh, it wasn’t like…” I stammered. “Okay, yes, I guess I did and now I feel really sick about it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t, Melinda,” Chris said. “Norma’s right, I wasn’t mad at you. I was mad at myself for being afraid.”

“Then you forgive me?” I asked, holding my breath.

“Yes, of course,” Chris stated.

“Oh, thank, God,” I said, exhaling.

“But don’t ever do it again, understand? And I
will
be paying you back, make no mistake about that.”

I nodded and held up my hands. “Totally understand. It won’t happen again, baby, I swear.”
Pay me back?

“I do love you for loving me like that,” Chris said.

“I love you, too,” I gushed. “Can we have makeup sex now?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Chris chuckled.

So Much Work, So Little Time — Felicia Livingston

Sitting in a cushy seat on board Melinda’s private jet, I drank champagne as I went over my notes. It was an intriguing idea, using a masquerade party to expose Melinda’s tormentor. I didn’t like the idea that the man who drugged Melinda would be mingling with college students, but the plan was to have them leave after just a few hours.

I put my concerns aside and concentrated on what I needed to do to pull the party together in a little over a week’s time. The Hollywood theme would make it easy to find decorations. After talking with Chris, I contacted the Blackstone Hotel to reserve their largest ballroom. The room was already booked. It took some finagling to move events around so that the room was available, but once they heard it was for the owner’s daughter, they bent over backward to help. They emailed me photos of the room, so I could going to decorate each wall with memorabilia from the Golden Age of Hollywood. First thing I needed to do was find a store that sold movie memorabilia, and I had no doubt there were a few of those stores in San Francisco. I needed to gather the usual items, such as cardboard standups of John Wayne, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and anyone else I could find. The Hollywood sign, of course, that I would hang from the wall with a back light to make it pop out. Old 8mm films and projectors would be a nice touch, and one of them could be showing silent films on the pull down screen in the corners of the room.

In spite of the reason for this party, it will look damn good and be so much fun, if I do say so myself. By the time I had completed a list of things I needed to do, we were landing at the airport. As we taxied to the gate, I saw a limousine with the driver standing beside it. Melinda had thought of everything.

Chapter Seventeen

Mini-Honeymoon — Melinda
and
Chris

When we weren’t helping Felicia with the party, Chris and I spent the next two weeks sightseeing. And not just in San Francisco either. Chris had never seen the California coastline, so I grabbed my camera and we took off.

We rented another car, leaving the SUV with Charlotte, and drove down the coastline on Highway One, which is one of the most scenic roadways in the country, or the world for that matter. As we got past the large population centers, I began to look for some sort of access to the beaches that were not surrounded by houses and people. Once we got past the community of Montara, there was a section of beach with no houses, or businesses, or even a parking lot. There was, however, a place to pull off the road, and from there we walk down a narrow trail to a patch of secluded beach. It was so much fun to see Chris’ excitement as she saw the waves washing up on the sand. We couldn't resist, we had to dip our toes into the waters of the Pacific Ocean. And then of course I just had to splash her with the salty water.

I stopped a couple more times to get out and take pictures of the waves breaking on rocks and solitary beaches. Chris was my model, and I took more pictures of my beautiful wife than I did of the beautiful scenery.

When I mentioned to Chris that we would be spending the night in Monterey, she said that name sounded familiar. Then she remembered why. Her great-aunt, now passed, would tell her stories when she was little, about life as a WAC, stationed at Fort Ord. Chris asked if we could take a side trip and see the base. I set the GPS while Chris did a Google search for information on Fort Ord.

We found what was left of the main base, which was not much more than a grassy field. We walked around, trying to find the women’s barracks area where Chris’ great-aunt would have stayed, but everything was gone.

“Okay,” she said, reading from her cellphone as we walked around, “Fort Ord was a United States Army post on Monterey Bay, which closed and was abandoned in 1994. My great-aunt was stationed here in the forties, during World War II.” Chris looked up from her phone. “She told me that the Women's Army Corps, or WACs as they were called, faced a lot of prejudice, and not just from the male soldiers, but from society as well. She joined up, thinking she could help her country, and was ridiculed as immoral. Can you imagine?”

“Thank God she did,” I said.

“Yeah, it freed up a lot of the men for combat,” Chris explained.

“Yes, but it also advanced women’s equality by leaps and bounds,” I added. “Without courageous women like your great-aunt, we’d all still be at home, barefoot and pregnant, and can you imagine me pregnant?” I started to shake just thinking about it.

“It’s okay, Melinda,” Chris said, rubbing my arm. “I’ll carry that load for us.”

“Oh, God, I love you so much!”

We spent the night in a little motel just on the edge of Monterey, nothing fancy, just a place to canoodle and sleep. The next morning, we spent some time exploring the town. It had grown considerably since the last time I breezed through. One of the places we visited was the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a place where an adult could feel ten years old again. I was partial to the Giant Pacific Octopus, which Chris said gave her the creeps. She preferred the tufted puffins and adorable sea otters. At one point, we even walked out on a deck to look out at Monterey Bay. We saw a wild sea otter as he lay on his back, swaying with the waves and eating his lunch. Most likely it was clams or mussels from the ocean floor. Chris said it was a very charming sight to see. We did a little more exploring, which included a drive through Cannery Row, the subject of the book of the same name by John Steinbeck. After lunch, we continued our drive down Highway One.

We passed through Pacific Grove and stopped a time or two after that for more picture taking. Then we arrived at Seventeen Mile Drive and began that very scenic route. We skipped the Pebble Beach Golf Course and Carmel By-the-Sea. We followed close to the shoreline and found a couple of really beautiful spots, especially at Cypress Point. We pulled over and I took some shots of my beautiful wife in front of some dramatic-looking rock formations with the ocean crashing over them. Of course, I jumped the fence and ventured out to the rocks, calling for Chris to follow me. After a few yells of “you’re crazy” she followed me. Just like in one of those movies, we kissed hard and hungrily as a spray of water doused us. We didn’t care.

We continued our drive down the coast, talking, laughing, and holding hands as we admired the beauty of the rugged coastline, with its crashing waves over the big rugged rocks, causing huge white water sprays. We passed through the Big Sur area and then we came around a curve and spotted a big white lighthouse. I had to stop and take pictures, though I had done so many times before. But this time, my bride would be in the picture, so it would be like seeing it for the first time, through her beautiful eyes.

Mini-Honeymoon —
Chris
and
Melinda

What a wonderful time Melinda and I were having. We dubbed it as our mini-honeymoon, cruising down the coastline without a care in the world. Well, almost without a care. Melinda looked so handsome in her black jeans and gray Berkeley T-shirt. I was wearing a white pair of slacks with a sailor tee that was solid blue on top, with red horizontal strips around the waist. I looked like a fashionable sailor on shore leave with her girlfriend.

One of the strangest sights we saw along the road was a barbeque rib shack. It was literally a shack, with a large backyard grill on wheels sitting in front of it. Of course we had to stop and investigate. A big, burly man, wearing a stained apron with an Arkansas Razorback on it, was sloshing barbeque sauce over the skewered chicken on a stick.

“Howdy,” he said with a thicker Southern drawl than I had.

“Hey, there,” I said back. “What’s a Razorback fan doing way over here in California?”

“Making ends meet,” he laughed and pointed at the meat on the grill. “Y’all want a stick?”

“Sure, how much?” Melinda asked, pulling a twenty from her jeans pocket.

“That’ll be five bucks each,” he said with a straight face.

“Five dollars for a piece of chicken on a stick?” I asked, shaking my head. “That’s highway robbery.”

“Well, in all fairness, Chris, we are next to a highway,” Melinda wisecracked.

“It’s not the chicken that you’re buying,” he said, “It’s my secret sauce.”

He tore off a tiny piece with his fork and handed it to me. Pulling it off the fork, I took a bite and handed the rest of it to Melinda. It was simply the best sauce I had ever tasted, and living in Memphis, I’ve tasted a lot. Melinda had that same satisfied look she gets after her orgasm. Well, similar to it at least.

“Listen, I recently took up barbequing, but nothing as fantastic as this,” Melinda said. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your secret sauce recipe.”

“That’s right nice of you, ma’am, but my sauce recipe ain’t for sale.”

“Two thousand dollars,” Melinda countered.

The man shook his head and crossed his arms.

“Honey, he’s not going to change his mind, no matter what you offer,” I said.

“Five thousand?” Melinda upped the ante.

“It could be five hundred thousand, and I’m still not going to give it to you,” he assured her. “It’s been handed down through generations of my family, and we have never revealed the recipe.”

“Okay, how about this then,” Melinda said. “Sell me a couple of jars of the stuff now, and I’ll give you some money to ship a box of it to Memphis, where we live.”

“Hell, lady, you can just eat at my brother’s restaurant in Memphis. It’s called The King’s BBQ, and it’s on—”

“Son of a bitch. Is your brother named Robert Kline?” Melinda asked.

“Yeah, that’s him. How did you know that?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s a long, arduous story,” I said, not wishing to remember the aching feet and greasy skin I suffered through when I worked there. Melinda had also worked there for a few weeks, and like me, she hated it. For her, it was an experiment, but for me it was my livelihood. Thank God those days were over with.

“You should give your brother some tips,” Melinda said. “Because I’ve tasted his sauce and it’s not nearly as good as yours.”

After she learned who his brother was, Melinda lost interest in the sauce, and paid the man for the chicken sample. Then we jumped back in the car and headed out again.

Melinda was cruising along when we noticed a large group of people at one of the lookout points. We weren’t interested in fighting a crowd, so she kept going. Then something caught her eye and she suddenly exclaimed that we needed to turn back. I didn't know what she was so excited about, but she made a big U-turn, right in an open stretch of the highway, and all she would say was that it would be worth it. We got back to the lookout point and pulled into the parking lot, just as that group of people were leaving.

As we got up to the railing along the cliff edge, there was an area that we could see down to the beach. It was filled with Elephant Seals. It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to come down, but we climbed over the railing and down to the beach. We kept our distance from the seals because they could be dangerous if threatened. There was one seal stretched out in the sand, not moving, seemingly not breathing either. The other seals were a stone’s throw away, as we say in the South, and seemed to not want to be around the seal. My eyes welled up with tears at how sad it was. Then suddenly it snorted and its blubbery stomach moved. I was so happy that the seal was alive that I jumped into Melinda’s arms. The unexpected closeness aroused us both, and we kissed to the sounds of Elephant Seals farting. At least that’s what they sounded like to me. Melinda wanted to hide under a large rock formation that formed a cliff on the beach, and make love, but I just couldn’t get past the noises the seals were making. Once she slowed down long enough to listen, she agreed with me, and we climbed back up to the parking lot, and jumped in the car. Suddenly we were in a hurry to find a hotel for the night.

We stayed at a five-star hotel in LA, and I made it up to Melinda. I realized, as I watched my wife climax that the look of satisfaction on her face was so much sweeter than when she ate the sauce. You can’t put a price on that.

The next morning, I got a call from my mother, who was frantic about the party. It seems she couldn’t find a certain item she wanted that would be the shining jewel in her crown. So I told her that we were in LA and would go look for it. Melinda knew LA well, and knew how to avoid the traffic clogs. It still took us a while, but we found what Mom wanted in a mega Hollywood memorabilia store. We picked up a few other things just for the fun of it, like an exact replica of the neon sign in Casablanca.
Rick’s Café Américain.
At first Melinda wanted to hang it over our bed, but I convinced her that the light would keep us awake, besides, it would look so much better in her game room.

We had planned to stay another day, but Mom called again and I knew she was starting to stress under the pressure. She always got that way when it got close to time for the event. But this time, it was our event, Melinda’s and mine, so we decided to cut the trip short, and fly back to help Mom. We rented a private jet and flew back to San Francisco. It only took an hour to fly back, but even so, I fell asleep on the plane, snuggled up in Melinda’s lap. I was exhausted but so happy. I hated to see the mini-honeymoon end though, because now we had to deal with John.