Tale of Two Couples (pt 7)

"I'm the bitch?"

It doesn't take too much imagination to guess that K was not very happy when she learned that B and I had hooked up. The word on the street was that she was accusing me of stealing him from her. Can you say delusional? Even if I had had my eye on him before my birthday party (which I hadn't) S certainly knew I had eyes for no one but him. In fact, at that very party, two months after our break up, I was still pining over him - yes, I was an idiot - so much so that I had asked him to come to my room to listen to a poem I had written for him... and the idiot factor goes up another notch.

At this point K and S were still denying any romantic involvement. A couple months later though, they had indeed publicly proclaimed their love. Technically - and if they had any manners at all, which we know they didn't - they should have been thanking us for giving them the freedom to pursue their unrequited love. But the mail-man delivered no heart-covered thank you notes to our door. Instead we were dissed. And dissed big.

One morning I was walking downtown on my way to somewhere important, and here coming towards me was the happy couple, hand in hand. As I got closer they suddenly turned and pretended to be thoroughly engaged in a window display of baby dolls. On another occasion, of all the restaurants in town and all the times to eat, both couples show up at the same place at the same moment. The waiting area of this particular establishment was tiny and there we were crammed in together, red-faced and speechless. They turned and fled.

The most difficult part for me was when mutual friends also gave us the cold shoulder. The very friends who knew what was going on before the break-up. The innocent became criminal. B was being touted as an abuser ("I could hear him yelling at her through the wall,"** and "It was just a matter of time before he hit her."). If anyone has ever met B they know he is just a big, compassion-stuffed teddy bear. Yes, he was a marine, but he also whispers sweet nothings to animals - even the tail-less goldfish - and cherishes people in a way that makes them feel nothing if not loved. Of course, this situation had made him angry but not that angry. And I, who had offered my home (and heart) to a hurt, homeless man was a slut and a bitch.

Since S and I had broken up, one male (let's call him M) in this group of former friends had become attentive to me. It began in July when we were all staying (stuck) in a cabin in NH and S and I decided, at last, to call it quits. M offered me a shoulder to cry on. Thereafter, he would randomly stop by my office to say hello and occasionally meet B and me for lunch. One time I had to stay with him at the hospital when his wife (yes, his wife) was unreachable by phone.

When B left K, it was with this couple with whom B and I went to the Fall Festival. It was this couple who initially "blessed" our potential relationship. In fact, M said he would love to see us together. He also said if S and K hooked up they would be out of his life because it would just prove what we all had guessed long ago.

But apparently reality didn't sit too well with him. B and I got together and eventually so did S and K. He called me things over the phone I can't repeat, physically turned his back on me at a friend's wedding, accused B of being abusive, and continued to worship the Almighty K.

When B asked me to marry him I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but I didn't. No engagement announcement in the paper, no formal portrait to show off my ring. The biggest event of my life to date was under the shadow by an unnecessary but powerful shame.


** What wall was he heard through? Well, that would be S's apartment wall. Only a few months after B and K were married, K had secured the next door apartment for S and a roommate (the other comic-book artist). K spent an inordinate amount of time over there "working" on whatever it was they worked on. B would come home to an empty apartment, devoid of his wife, love or warmth.

My husband's gone...

... and I was alone with the kids overnight for the first time ever. I know, boohoo, right. He's only been gone for three nights but my anxiety went through the roof. (I'm not afraid of boogie-men in the night, I just have a slightly dysfunctional panic button.)

Haul in 40lb-put-the-chiropractor-on-stipend-bags of pellets to keep the stove running? No choice there. Take the garbage and recycling out when the windchill is -20? Er, it doesn't smell that bad, it can wait another week. Scoop out the cat litter? The cats are standing outside the door with their little legs crossed... guess I can't skip that one, but I won't like it, not one little bit. Put gas in the car? Do I have to? It's stinky and so... so unfeminine.

You did not just say that! Oh, yea, I did. And I won't apologize...

Truth is, I'm a traditionalist at heart.

And I blame my mother.

Growing up, my mother told me I needed to find a man who spoiled me and treated me like a princess. She also told me respect was the most important part of a relationship. So what did I do? Go out and date the most controlling and disrespectful men (boys) I could find. One pushed me down the side of the bed and threw clothes on top of me, just for fun (which might explain the panic button issue). One just wanted me around to wash dishes while he entertained his ex. One told me my dreams were just that. Another allowed me to go on loving him (and criticized me for it) while he loved another. You might say I wasn't taking out the garbage back then either.

And then my prince came along. If being told you're beautiful and that your dreams are important enough to pursue no matter what is being spoiled, then I was... rottenly. If hauling bags of trash and (wo)man-handling feline excrement was also taken off my to-do list, as well as removing rodent remains from the carpet or wiping up dog vomit, I wasn't going to argue. Can you really blame me?

I do the mommy-stuff around here. I won't up the gross-factor of this post any further by listing them, but we all know the disgusting bodily fluid messes in which we mothers dabble. It's not that my husband won't do them, he'd just rather not. Well, call me a princess, but I'd rather not pump gas, inflate tires (I have an irrational fear of explosion), empty garbage cans, or scoop poop.

He's been gone a few days and I would say I enjoyed having the expanse of our bed to myself but I spent the night being kicked in the back by Tator who missed his Daddy and needed to sleep next to me. I would say I didn't mind snoring through the arrival of 2009 (while insane people stood outside in zero degrees to watch a ball drop - who does that?), but today felt no different than any other day because I hadn't shared the moment. I would say I can handle everything because I'm a Woo-oo-oo-man, but I'd be lying. I was a single mom for three days and my respect for real single moms, while already high, has sky-rocketed.

I don't intend this to sound as if I only need him around to help me get through life. I also need him walking through the door all tall and handsome, cheeks red from his cold walk home from work; I need him animated when he talks to the kids at the dinner table; I need how my head fits perfectly in the indent of his shoulder. I need how he listens. I need our partnership.

Thank goodness he's back tomorrow - the trash does smell rather bad.

The Tale of Two Couples (pt.6, for real)

I was excited to go camping. Despite the fact that four other couples and a few random singles were coming along too, I was looking forward to the romance of snuggling in a tiny tent, sharing a sleeping bag, keeping each other warm on an early spring night.

After hiking in our gear and setting up camp, we all sat around the fire, laughing over hot chocolate and s'mores. There are photos of me from that weekend looking 100 lbs heavier, all lumpy and shivering, wrapped in a blanket and multiple layers of clothing. Not one of these pictures includes my loving boyfriend with his arm around me sharing his body heat. No. I spent that weekend with only betrayal for company.

While I was trusting that a weekend in the woods would spark a dying flame, S made it very clear that a night alone in a tent with me was more embarrassing than romantic. God forbid, anyone would hear us whispering sweet nothings.... no, he wanted us whispering, saying, doing, nothing. As he had been from day one of our relationship, he was reluctant to show any kind of affection towards me in public. I took this rejection as I always had - with hurt resignation. I spent the night curled up around myself.

In the morning, I awoke to find him already gone from our cold nest. I assumed he had gone off to find the outhouse and didn't think too much about it. But as the smell of bacon and eggs filled the air he still hadn't returned. Not wanting to come across as distrustful - he was a grown man, he had every right to go off for a walk - I casually asked if anyone had seen him. No one had. Nor did anyone - including her husband - know where K was.

On the pretense of fetching him for breakfast I wandered towards the water, still clinging to the hope that I would find him alone.

On an rock jutting out over the gently rippling lake, I found them sitting side by side. They did not show surprise to see me pushing through the low hanging branches, in fact, annoyance seems a more appropriate description was what I saw on their faces. And I think it was this that kept my hope alive (idiot, that I was). They did not jump apart, or even have the decency to look embarrassed at their discovery. Their innocence kept me believing. They should have won an Oscar.

They showed me the dragonfly they had been watching uncurl from its former shell to dry its wings in the weak morning sun. As the three of us watched, it suddenly flitted up and out over the water. A bird swooped down and ended its journey before it had even begun. K started to cry.

Later that afternoon we all packed our snacks and headed up the mountain for the waterfall of which we'd heard tell. I wandered leisurely through the woods chatting with a girl friend. As some of the braver (insaner) souls jumped and splashed in the frigid mountain pool, I laughed at their shrieks and nakedness and managed to keep up the conversation. But my mind and eyes were elsewhere.

S had once again disappeared.

As I crossed a small bridge on the way back to camp, I caught sight of something just below. Sitting by the water, their straps crisscrossed together, were two pairs of sandals; Tevas, the stream gently lapping over the toes. One, size 5 was red and in good shape, the other much larger blue pair, were trodden down at the heel with the velcro barely hanging on. S was constantly bending down to re-fasten those flapping straps.

I don't remember much of the trip after this point. I know I stayed because I had no vehicle to leave by. Knowing me and my constant, insistent denial, I probably tried to act like nothing was happening. One thing I do recall, however, was that one couple (at whose wedding I sang and was blantantly snubbed a year later - an actual turn to the wall snub) left the camping trip early with the explanation that they could no longer be witness to the childish antics.

Unbelievably, it took another two months before S and I finally ended the charade.

The Tale of Two Couples (pt.6)

I'm cheating tonight.

I was going to watch Desperate Housewives - my one TV addiction other than Lost (why do they have to take such insanely long breaks? Is filming in Hawaii that taxing?) - but apparently Justin Timberlake is more important than the Wives tonight (although I do love Annie Lennox). So, I thought I'd write something instead. But I just folded and put away four baskets of laundry (and still have three to go), my back is killing me, and I'm needing to be at one with my duvet for a few hours before the frenzy of Monday morning. So, ball's in YOUR court, my few and far between readers...

What would you like to hear about next?

1. When I heard my father say "shit" - for the first time ever - in reference to the male company I kept?

or

2. How I spent an entire camping trip looking for my tent mate?

Your call...

The Tale of Two Couples (pt. 5)

In October, I was one of about a trillion bridesmaids in the wedding of a friend. The reception was held just a mile from my parent's house and there was going to be dancing. B was living at my parent's house and I really liked the idea of dancing with him. I asked the bride if he could come over after the food and cake.

When told who this guy was, another friend's response was, "well, it obviously won't work." I was crushed. Was she right?

B is a great dancer; pulling me close, pushing me away, swinging this way and that. My meter was ticking over into Seriously Turned On.

When the Electric Slide was losing its zap, we decided it was time to leave. However, we weren't ready to call it a night. So, along with another couple, we headed to a bar by the frightful name of Finnius T. Flubberbusters. Although it was almost ten years since graduation, I discovered five or six fellow alumnus hiding in the cracks of this dismal place drinking and playing pool. The surprised looks on their faces told me I was the last person in the world they expected to walk through the door. And I was very ready to walk right back through it. But I had a tall, handsome man by my side, I was still slim (unlike many of my aging classmates), and I was ready to have some good, redneck fun.

Unfortunately, so was another patron of the establishment. A lanky red head, with hair swinging down to her cute little behind, sidled up to B while the four of us were chatting and asked him to dance. He accepted. Twice. While I watched him dance with her just like he had with me at the wedding a little while earlier, a unfamiliar feeling surged through me. The usually passive cat in me pounced and (silently) hissed at Little Miss Red. I dug my claws into "my" man and took him away. My dancing took on a new intensity, trying to tell him through my moves that I was ready to be his.

To this day I don't know if his little excursion with that sexy l'il thang was a strategic move on his part. Whenever I ask him he just grins. Whatever it was, it worked... kind of. It was later that night when I sat on his lap and cried as he told me I would love him. Jealousy had lit one fire but guilt was still burning hard and strong, smothering any other feelings that might be attempting to grow.

A Tale of Two Couples (pt. 4)

In 1997 the game began.


I ran into an old college friend (let's call him S) in the toy aisle of Walmart. He was in the toy aisle. That should have been my first clue.

We got together for old time's sake; talked about the musical we were in as freshman and how our lives had transpired over the past seven years. Another friend from college, who coincidentally was in a marshal arts class with S, said we should invite him to a party that was scheduled for that weekend.

So the party came and went, he was the center of attention (I'm not sure why. The Guinness in cool new cans that he brought, maybe?), and we had fun. That was about it. By the time we got invited to another party a couple of weeks later we had begun phoning and flirting at the possibility of liking each other. Once again he was the center of attention, this time due to his sketching ability. The hostess was his main admirer but she was dating someone, and had been for three years. She was therefore harmless.

But I had noticed her attentions and S's response and questioned him. He assured me, although he thought her cute, he liked me, and besides she was taken. By the end of the evening we were kissing goodbye on my front stoop.

So ensued a fun, goofy relationship. He made me laugh until I cried. We went to lots of parties, many more than I had ever been invited to before (remember I was only the friend of a friend). I was acutely aware that my joined-at-the-hipness with S was the cause of my new popularity. But I tried to ignore that fact and have the kind of fun I had missed out on in college due to my shyness and annoying insistence on doing well academically. We went on trips together, he came to my choral concerts, had dinner with my family, and we attended friends' weddings. One wedding was that of our before-mentioned hostess (K) and her beau, B. In fact, yours truly sang at the festive occasion. And the gift and card were given jointly from the now-serious couple J and S.

At some point, S and K, at K's encouragement, began a "project." S was a cartoonist, K was a writer. There was also another cartoonist friend involved (a chaperone?) for a while. After work K and S would meet at the waterfront and make plans for their book, or whatever the hell it was. At this juncture I was more hurt that I was not included in their creative endeavors than by anything else. After all, I was a writer and an artist. I did not doubt S's faithfulness - to all appearances, including mine, we had a healthy relationship.

But then 1999 rolled around.

A Tale of Two Couples (pt 3)

But I couldn't stay away. B soon traded his lonely attic retreat and cold feet for toasty toes under my cozy duvet. Yes, it was fast...

... and I couldn't handle the guilt.

Every moment we spent together filled me with doubt and each kiss caused me physical pain. I was betraying a friend... wasn't I? My tears were now a mixture of anger and shame. I couldn't enjoy my new love affair. No walking down the street holding hands or giggly googly-eyes in the back of a restaurant. B told me time and again I shouldn't put so much pressure on myself - if we were falling in love then that's what was meant to happen. On a visit to my parents' house, I nervously told my mother I thought I might, um, possibly have some feelings for B (whom she had met a few times). I felt my load lighten (but not dissipate) when, without hesitation, she said "well, it was inevitable." I felt I had her blessing despite the circumstances.

Sometime in October B moved to my parents' house. They were living temporarily out of town and the arrangement of a house-sitter who did some maintenance for rent was satisfactory for all. Well, almost. B increased his commute by 800% and when his evening shift ended at midnight, the ride home was an hour-and-a-half battle with his eyelids. The time spent in a large, empty house with my fat cat curled on his lap was good for his emotional healing, but not so good for the phone bill. We talked almost every day and weekends were spent together. It didn't take long for weekends to begin on Thursday night, then Wednesday, and pretty soon his commute "home" was cut down to maybe once a week.

One night as I sat on B's lap in the glow of the woodstove, he held my hand over his heart (yes, he was for real) and told me he loved me. I cried. And said nothing. He placed my hand over my heart and told me that he wasn't worried - he knew I would fall in love with him too. I had never felt so scared.

Meanwhile, the other two had given up the game...

A Tale of Two Couples (pt 2)

The exact details of the next day are confused in my mind. But I do know that much later that morning I found myself hugging B's tearful wife on her front porch as he got in the car to drive away from her for the last time. B, me, and two other friends were going to a Fall Festival. To say I felt conflicted would be an understatement. Here I was consoling someone who was the reason I was no longer dating the man I thought I was going to marry and who had caused a grown man to weep in my lap just a few hours earlier. Not to mention the fact that I had wanted to kiss that very man.

At the festival, while trying to concentrate on apple cider and pumpkin-headed scarecrows, I was distracted by the little flutter inside me each time B and I walked together. We didn't talk, we didn't touch, but I felt - rightly or wrongly - that he was already mine.

But he wasn't. He was a married man. A brand, spanking-newly separated man. I was just the shoulder he had leaned on. I'm guessing that he saw nothing at that festival other than the thoughts crashing through his head.

Later that evening my phone rang. It was B asking if he could stay in my attic; the unheated, dirty, furniture and audio-cassette graveyard. No other friends had any space to spare (did he ask anyone else? I've never questioned that), and so of course, after passing it by my room-mates, I said yes.

In what was most likely a servant's room in the early 1900s, we set up a futon, a flash light, a battery-operated clock radio and some of his prize-possession books. As the late September wind blew in the broken window, B curled up shivering and alone in his new bachelor pad.

Over the next week, after B came downstairs each day to thaw out in a hot shower, he and I would talk and talk. We got angry all over again and more tears were wasted on our former loves. A carry-out sandwich at the kitchen table was our first "date," and when he was working the evening shift he would sometimes meet me at my office to go to lunch. One night he picked me up at my bedroom door for our first formal date and later we said goodnight at the base of the attic stairs. We were trying very hard to be normal when we couldn't be further from it.

We were falling for each other. Whether in different time and situation we would have felt the same we will never know, but here we were sharing a heartache and a bathroom, and the wheel of fate shifted.

At some point I began to visit him in his attic icebox - to say good morning, good night, or just hello. Something drew me up those rickety old stairs, and it wasn't the ambiance. Then one evening it happened. Just once. And I was shaking like it was the first time I had ever been kissed. It was one of those kisses that movies are made about. I turned to liquid.

And then I ran.

A tale of two couples (pt 1)

Two pairs of sandals left by a stream -

Quite unimportant a sight it would seem.

Two wandering children gone off to play?

A couple trying to get quietly away?

What did I feel dart through my heart

As I witnessed those shoes play their innocent part?

Close as two lovers in bed,

They symbolized everything I'd come to dread.

Stifled tears escaped from my eyes

While scanning to see what I longed to deny.

Up and down the river no one was seen,

Only the evidence left by the stream.

I did not see what my mind unwillingly beheld -

How could they continue to be so uncaring and bold?

In the mountains I faced my fear manifest,

Constantly haunting me despite hopeful trust.

Betrayal was laying there at my feet -

Those sandals together, their owners' retreat.

One pair are his who sleeps by my side,

The second belong to my friend - another man's wife.

I wrote this (admittedly horrible) poem almost 10 years ago. I can now share it because the pain has long passed and I do believe - finally - the anger has too. The (happy) life I now have is all due to the events that took place on September 25, 1999, although the story begins two or three years prior to that.

It was almost midnight on the night of my 27th birthday party and all but two of my guests had left. I was woozy but not drunk, and very sleepy. But when B asked me if we could talk I could tell by his tone that I needed to stay awake a little longer. After we finally got the other hanger-on to leave B and I sat down.

Then the tears came.

Now B is a big guy, a funny guy, a don't-show-your-emotions-marine guy, and here he was sitting in my living room crying - to me, and we hardly knew each other. You see, B was married to a friend of mine, not a close friend, just a member of a group of goofy people I had recently become aligned with for the purpose of partying and Sunday morning brunching. I was not particularly close with any of them - I was a friend of a friend. B and I had only chatted about something deeper than the foam on a Guinness one other time (which happened to be religion). Beyond that he was just one of the gang and he made me laugh, as he did everyone (except his wife - but that's another story... oh, actually it's not).

B came to me because we had something in common - our partners were in love with each other Yes, his (very new) wife was in love with my (by then, ex) boyfriend.

B had given his extroverted, gregarious wife the benefit of the doubt for too long and he couldn't take it anymore. He and I had both put up with their "friendship" for over a year - hanging out every Wednesday night (working on a comic book project, they said), even coming home at 6AM sometimes - and in constant denial that there was anything more between them. The awkwardness and insanity of the situation had finally broken up my boyfriend and me 3 months before, although I was still in denial that he could truly be in love with another man's wife - over me! B had never talked to anyone about the pain and feelings of betrayal and anger he was experiencing. But it was time.

That night two very hurt (and slightly drunk) individuals talked and cried together into the half light of morning. We yelled at those who had hurt us and we beat ourselves up for being so naive. We felt like a couple of door mats - stomped on and caked in mud.

I won't deny that I fell in love with him that night. I have never wanted someone to kiss me quite so intensely. I know it was the combination of wine, sleep deprivation, and a very large dose of emotional overload. But it did not happen. He was married. I was still mourning my lost love. We hugged and we said goodbye.