“I’m so fuckin jealous, Marisol.”
“You are in a trap of your own doing,” she replied, giving me a speak to the hand gesture with an open palm. “I warned you.”
“I know,” I sighed, knowing she had been right.
Her caution years ago about how Paul was not the type to agree to an open marriage or even simple spouse swapping had been clear. And I had ignored it, thinking I could bring Paul around.
“So, your friends, what happened?” Marisol changed the topic seeing my unhappy reaction to talk of Paul.
“So the stupid bitch convinced herself that it had to be love. Sex to break her boredom is not what ‘good girls’ like her do.”
“Bullshit,” Marisol spat out. “These uppity twats think that sex for just sex is what sluts or whores do. Not them. They delude themselves that they are above that when they lift their skirts for some strange dick.”
“Exactly. We’ve talked about this before,” I agreed and continued. “She was typical all right. So she ran off telling Gil, our neighbor, that she was in love and had to go be with her true soulmate.”
“Did she really say that?” Marisol asked, then made a gagging sound when I nodded yes to her. “I’m going to barf.”
“It would be funny if it weren’t sad,” I said because there was more.
“She did this Gil guy a favor,” Marisol said, pointing her finger at the table.
“He didn’t think so,” I replied.
“Ain’t love grand? Let me guess. He couldn’t live without her. Then he went back and forth from loving her one minute to hating her the next.”
“You got it,” I replied, remembering the entire event as if it happened yesterday.
“Typical reaction of basics. What then?”
“Oh, it gets better. Worse actually. She dumped him in 92, right? Then she came back almost a year ago and begged Gil to take her back.”
“No way!”
“Oh yes way. And Lynn brought someone along.”
“Who?”
“Her little boy. The student’s boy. The same student who tossed her out and wanted nothing to do with her. So much for true love and soulmates.”
“Serve the bitch right,” Marisol said. “Shame that her child has no father and a moron for a mother.”
“So true, but things almost worked out for a while.”
“How?”
“Gil took her back.”
“Wow! He did?” Marisol asked in surprise. “That was nice of him.”
I raised a finger in a there is more gesture and expression. To which Marisol waved me on to continue.
“Yes. Her and the kid both. They were with him for some time. Then one day, he just up and tossed her out. Both her and the little boy.”
“I bet that got his manhood back,” Marisol shook her head.
“No. His ego got the best of him,” I replied, shaking my head. “The poor child was not at fault, but the first time the kid called him daddy, Gil flipped out and threw them out. Lynn was crying, banging on the door with just a robe on. The poor child was crying too. Oh, it was a mess.”
“I get it. She did him dirty,” Marisol said with a sad look. “But why do that to the poor child?”
“Spite, revenge, you pick from the above,” I replied. “I had to go get Lynn and the boy and bring them into our house. I couldn’t leave them out there. And this is where the shit hit the fan.”
“Don’t tell me the husband followed you to your house. Did he?”
“No. We took them in that night, and Paul went next door to calm Gil. I stayed home to get our kids to bed and get the couch ready for her and the boy. We only have rooms for us, no spare.”
“What then?”
“Gil would have none of it. The next day her stuff was on the driveway – the same with the little boy’s toys. It was awful. We eventually gave her money to rent a van to drive to her parents in New Jersey, where she and Gil had met. The whole thing was a mess. But it caused issues between Paul and I.”
“How so?”
“Paul stayed quiet as I ranted about how cold Gil had been toward the child. Paul may have said nothing, but I could tell from the snide look on his face that he didn’t care. To be honest, Marisol, I could have cared less about the silly bitch. She made her bed and deserved what she got. But the child, the boy. Marisol, he is so cute and innocent. It broke my heart to see him crying… calling Gil, daddy, from outside the door. How can anyone do that to a child?”
I was crying by then, and so was Marisol.
“Garry has not seen his child for years, Paula. Do you remember how I told you the surrogate mother just ran off reneging on the deal? I’ve caught Garry holding on to the ultrasound picture and crying as he stared at it. This is awful. Plain awful.”
I had heard the story second hand from Marisol years ago, but it was still vivid in my mind. Not being able to have children herself, Marisol had convinced Garry that he should have a child with a woman they knew. They would pay her expenses during the pregnancy, and she would give them the child. Only the woman had changed her mind and disappeared with the newborn. It had been hard on both of my neighbors.
In that instant, I realized how lucky I was to have children. And how fortunate Paul was that I had not run off with them. Many women who had unhappy marriages divorced, knowing child custody would be awarded to the mother. In Florida, as in most states, the mother almost always got the kids, and the husband had to pay child support. But I could never do that to Paul. We may have had our issues, but neither he nor the children deserved to be separated from each other because he and I had problems.
“The whole thing has given me a lot to think about, Marisol. But there are two things I don’t want for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to break up my family. And I am not going to live a boring humdrum subsistence life because Paul is content with it.”
“What does that translate to in real life?” Marisol asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re making me do all the work. I came here for advice, girlfriend.”
“It’s your life Paula. You only get one, and it has better be on your terms. I made my choices.”
She was right.
“I’m going back to work. We need the money. When I worked briefly at a real estate agency, I discovered that it was easy and that I liked it.”
“I have a feeling there is more,” Marisol smiled.
“There is,” I replied. “Paul is not the man I married and fell in love with.”
She stared back at me, then smiled and nodded with an expression that said ‘I told you so.’
“All men change after almost ten years, Paula,” she replied. “You don’t have to go far. Look at your dad.”
“My dad is still full of zest in life. He is still a man women want. Women like you. Paul is but a shell of the man I married.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Let me tell you how?” I said and began. “When I first met Paul, he was a virginity taker.”
“A what!” she exclaimed. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. That was his specialty with the preppy sorority girls in college,” I continued. “I did some checking on him back then and found out Paul probably popped nineteen cherries- maybe more.”
“Go, Paul!” Marisol giggled and clapped. “Was that like a fetish or something for him?”
“No. Apparently, he had sex with a sorority girl, and she told the other girls how gentle Paul had been during her first time. So others went to him for the experience. Finding it true, they confirmed the first review. From then on, he became legendary in preppy circles. They went to him. Paul didn’t even have to go looking.”