Chapter 1

Hey. How's it going? Been a while yeah? Lets see, it's nineteen months, two weeks and four days since "The Event". Simon and I call this time P.E. – Post Event. The event, of course, being the rather public disintegration of my marriage, when I used the TV Jumbotron at Wrigley Field to call out my cheating wife, Deanna and her lover.

In case you forgot, I am Ryan. I have three kids, one of whom is adopted, and an ex wife –the afore-mentioned Deanna – and I live in the suburbs of Chicago. I used to live in Crystal Lake, but now ... wait. Getting ahead of myself. I do that.

So let's see. What's changed since The Event? Lots of stuff. Divorced – obviously. I don't live in Crystal Lake any more. After the divorce I was awarded custody of the kids – Deanna didn't have a stable enough job or earn enough, and I had the house and the stable job, so it just made sense. The judge – a crusty old bird with bi-focals that made her eyes seem huge on her face – was not a happy camper when everything that happened came out. I could see her going purple when the part about them being on the jumbotron came out –, even though it couldn't be proved it was me, courtesy of my hacker friend, Solomon -, staring at me with anger in her eyes. She was obviously one of those "the wife gets everything" judges, but in this case the facts were clear and there wasn't much she could do about that, despite her natural inclinations.

In the end, I got custody, which meant Deanna owed me child support. I owed her alimony and it worked out to a wash, so she went her way and I went mine. We had an agreement on the house, so that if I sold it, she got half, and I'd be stuck with the mortgage payments in the meantime. Not thrilled about that, but that's the law and thems the breaks.

At the end of it all, I think it worked out as well as a situation like this was ever going to. I'd not started this, I'd just finished it and I didn't see why my life had to disintegrate any more than it already had because she'd decided to go get some strange. Emotionally, that was a different matter. I was a bit of a wreck for a while, but when you have to get up, get the kids to school and be Mom AND Dad at the same time, well, you suck it up and get on with it, don't you? That's what being a parent is. God knows what waking up everyday and not being next to her kids did to Deanna. But then, don't do the crime if you can't do the time. My sympathy is somewhat muted, you know?

I did end up moving – to Naperville. It was more about not making the mortgage payments that she'd capitalize on if I sold the house than anything else –, see, even though Deanna was no longer contributing to the mortgage (not that she did much anyway), it meant that I'd have to pay it alone, but she'd still get half of the entire value of what I'd put into the house when I sold it. It's not a very fair situation I thought. I could pump another hundred grand into the house, and she'd get fifty of it, when it sold, despite not contributing at all -, although the memories in there didn't help.

There were days when I woke up and expected to see Deanna making coffee and then the realization would come that that wasn't going to happen - and my day would start in a shitty fashion. It's weird to be both glad she's not there and yet missing her desperately at the same time. It's like being both hot and cold at the same moment. – having one feeling would inevitably lead to another. Hard to explain unless you've been there.

Speaking of Deanna, I did my best to stay away from her and not be around when she came to pick up the kids. We've had some contact; you can't be a co-parent without any. It's mostly done via text or mercifully brief email. We've had to have some physical conversations about the kids; Paula went through a brief shoplifting phase and we had to get together to work out a shared strategy of addressing it. We had dinner and it was awkward. It was awkward because we just fell right back into being partners in terms of the kids, but there was the underlying tension of us being exes there too. At least there was for me. We didn't talk about The Event – but at least she's stopped trying to apologize to me, thank god. Strangely, she's never asked for forgiveness. I don't think it's because she doesn't want it, I think it's just assumed. Either way, I'm not going there. She can if she wants, but for me, I just want to move on.

After I kicked her out, she sent me a video of her in therapy, trying to understand why she did what she did. At the end of it she said that she was coming for me; that it wasn't over and she was going to get me back. I had even written a text to her that, drunk and stupid, I sent. It asked her "Ok, what would you do to make it up to me?" I was genuinely curious about what her answer would be, but the only answer I got was one word – "Anything". And then nothing more. That was months ago – over a year in fact - and it's never been brought up again. I'm certainly not going to talk about it. She was the one who said she was coming for me; let her make any moves. I'm just trying to get on with life.

I gave her pretty much unrestricted access to the kids – it seemed only fair because she hadn't cheated on them, just me, and she was a great mom. I'd already fucked with their lives enough when I threw their mother out and it didn't seem like a good idea to compound it. She had one or more of the kids almost every weekend, and sometimes Paula during the week too. It was all about as civil and good as it really was ever going to be, with us maneuvering around each other.

So we moved to Naperville. When I sold the house, I was extremely surprised to find that its value had almost doubled, even in these times. Both Deanna and I made $85k on the deal, so when we moved, I rented a house, paid two years up front and then sat back to wonder what to do next.

Oh job, right, yes. Sorry, the job. As you know, I was a VP at Dresdin, a company that makes high end bespoke furniture. Paul was kicked upstairs a while back and the board hired some one else for the job, one Mark Higley. He's a nice enough fella, great hair, but also pretty clueless, and he has that fatal flaw that because he was hired, he really believed he was the right man for the job, even though he had zero experience of the business or knowledge of the people working for him. Ostensibly, my job was to manage the sales group, but I basically ran the place while the Much-Loved-But-Complete-Idiot-In-Charge sat in his office, making plans to end humanity. Or whatever it was he got up to in there. He'd give me grandiose commands, I'd say 'Sure thing' and then ignore it and get the company working, like I did with Paul.

Six months in, Higley summons me to his office, says casually, "I've noticed you seem to be involved in lots of areas of the business that Sales shouldn't really be in. The other department heads don't seem to be as responsible for their business as they should be, so I've sent round a memo indicating that they need to pull their socks up a bit sharpish. You won't be bothered by them any more, which should free up some of your time."

Now I'm not an idiot - well, not completely. My wife cheated on me for weeks and I had no clue, so obviously I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer at times. But I knew what this was. This was a control situation and he was exercising his position and authority over me. I knew that if I went to the board, they'd have to support his position, since they'd hired him in the first place. The sly wink that had happened when he was hired – when they'd increased my salary by 30%, so it was larger than the new CEO's – was not actually going to be followed through by any more increase in responsibility; they were just happy someone's hand was on the tiller.

Now that hand was going to be Mark Higley's, not mine. He'd had six months to learn from me, and this was the first act in operation Push Ryan Back Down. I just sat there, nodded, didn't say much, went back to my office and had my resignation letter written by lunch.

I went back to his office, handed it his secretary, who knew exactly what it was, then headed back to my office to start emptying it. I was done and out of the building by 1:30. By 2pm I had two phone calls from board members trying to keep me around – phone calls I gently but firmly ignored. And by 3:30pm I was comfortably buzzed. I'd gone to the The Cottage, just off the main street of Crystal Lake. By 4:00pm pretty much the entire crew from Dresdin was there, having a drink, trying to talk me out of it, and basically abandoning the company for the afternoon. I heard later, from Paul, that the board had an emergency meeting that night to determine what to do based on this event, and voted four to six to fire Mark Higley and appoint me. But he had enough friends on that board –that or my hair wasn't good enough - and so it fizzled out.

Honestly, while I'd given my all to that company, walking out didn't faze me that much. When they gave the CEO job to someone else, my loyalty was basically broken, and I'd been thinking about what else I'd do anyway. After the crap with Deanna went down, I only had the kids to think about, and while I did bury myself in the job, I also found that the joy of it was gone. I wanted to do something else; I just didn't have a clue what.

Now I had no choice. So off to Naperville we went, for a reboot – as Solomon would say – and that's where we live now.

Solomon came back into town a couple of times, and hung out with Simon and we shot the shit. He seems the same, still socially inept, still a genius. He's moved on from drinking as an experimental experience, to sex, apparently. He's discovered it and now his research moves in that direction. I have no idea how he is finding women to nail, given his ability to piss off someone within thirty seconds of meeting them, - I did idly wonder if he was cloning them; it seemed like something he'd do – but he seems happy enough.

Oh, one other thing that happened I should mention. Once the whole story had come out, I actually had a couple of Hollywoody agenty people contact me, looking to buy the story for some movie of the week. I was flown out to Hollywood and wined and dined for a week, by this married couple of producers. They were nice people but damn, you wanted to hate them. He was this perfect specimen of man hood and she looked like a 1940's dame, from one of those war movies with Ingrid Bergman. It was also revolting how into each other they were. Constant handholding and looks and touches and stuff. At dinner they sat there, feeding each other, and forgot I was there at all. It was all too disgusting for words. A good relationship should be full of sarcasm and rudeness and thoughtlessness and arguments. Not googly eyes and puppy dog stuff. I kept waiting for some suitably saccharin music track to play over the top of them making out, or the world to suddenly go into soft focus. Apparently they'd made some movie about a fat guy getting thin or something and were the flavor of the month, and their production company was looking for new stories to churn out on the Lifetime channel, or some such. Honestly, I wasn't listening that much, as I was trying to celebrity spot without being too obvious about it. Paula about shat her self when she found out I was going to be in Hollywood, and put on a weeklong campaign that she had to go with me. When I dropped them off with Deanna, she was one pissed off teenager. But I brought her back some swag and promised that if I went again, I'd take her.

They took me to a party, in the Hollywood Hills, and I had a moment there where I truly got to see what Hollywood was. I was standing on the balcony, looking out over this unbelievable view of LA that you could not stop looking at, and some young hottie came up next to me, made some general conversation, then just asked flat out if I was a producer, since she'd seen me talking to the couple that brought me out. I told her I wasn't anybody, and she just looked at me, smiled and said 'I need to go see who else is here.' And that was that. I wasn't somebody, so I was unworthy of conversation.

The next day I signed on the dotted line, let them have the story, got a check for just south of a hundred and fifty grand, smiled a lot and left. Nothing happened with it – I was told later it was in 'turnaround' – whatever that means. I'm informed it's where TV shows go to die. Someone has bought it, but no one wants to make it. Apparently it's very common and I'm totally ok with that. I didn't really need to humiliate Deanna any more than I already had, so it never going on the screen was A-OK with me. I got paid anyway. Funny thing though – the name of the production company was on the check and I really don't know what to make of it. Heinz the Cat Productions. Hollywood people, I ask you.

Anyway, apart from that, the only other thing that happened that's worthy of reporting is my new gig. I kind of fell into it. I'd vaguely decided I wanted to do something in the mobile / web area. Watching Paula with her phone and iPad, I noticed how much time she spends glued to it, and I figured I didn't want to work for anyone else, so I'd try making an app or something. I bought a laptop and hung out at a local shared desk co-op group, where you just roll in every day, sit with your laptop and work. They have conference rooms you can sign up for and lots of resources, but the most important one is access to all the smart kids who work there day in and day out. I just sat there with my laptop, watching them, looking at what they were doing and wondering if there was an opportunity there.

Eventually I met these two guys – both older than most of the other kids, but smart, very smart. They were named Deke Simpson and Kevin Byall. Deke was the Programmer and Kevin was half coder and half designer. Not quite Solomon smart, but then I also didn't want to kill them after talking to them for twenty minutes, so that was a good start. They wanted to make a game – they had it all planned out but it was very apparent very quickly that neither of these two knew shit about scheduling or actually making something happen. It was like they were very conversant with the nuts and bolts, but had no idea what order to put them together in. They were typical geeks; knew their area inside and out, but in terms of anything else, forget it. And My God, they could talk. Within an hour of meeting them, I knew that Kevin was a part time sculptor, and also an erotic storywriter, as a hobby. Deke wrote screenplays and taught Aikido classes. They just never stopped with the flow of information. I could barely get a word in edgeways.

Anyway, they needed a backer to pay for art on this game and stuff, and I stepped up. I ended up with a contract with them, where I'd fund and run the new company, and they would actually create this game they'd pitched; a mobile version of a card game based around a pantheon of gods. We rented office space, I spent more time with Jonathan Bruty, my lawyer friend, wrote up legal stuff, and we started development. I got a crash course in what video games are, an education in how they are made and it was off to the races.

Speaking of Jonathan, I should mention I've grown a lot closer to him. He turned out to be a much nicer human being than I gave him credit for. He reached out to me, made sure I had a place to go for holidays, or when Deanna had the kids. His wife – who I had dated before any of us where married – was also nice to me. It was nice to have new friends that weren't in any way 'our' friends, if you know what I mean. They could say things about Deanna and not have to qualify them because they'd see her at some point. They weren't her friends, and would never run into her.

I've dated some, but honestly, it was a disaster each time. I tried online dating, and some of the women were quite nice, but each seemed to have her own baggage. As an ex sales person, I'm pretty good at reading what people are telling you they want from body language, posture and tone – and most importantly, what they don't say -, and some of these women were definitely looking for something. One was totally upfront and said she was looking for a new dad for her kids, and was 'willing to make it worth his while, too'. I don't think that's really a great place to start a relationship and said so and she was mortally offended. Aww shucks.

To be brutally honest, I was just not really been that interested. I had trust issues, and the damage that Deanna's fling did to my ego and self-image was still there. I knew it, and while I even went to see Jim, the therapist that Deanna had seen, it didn't really help me that much. He was hard to talk to, multiplied by the fact that I knew he knew every thing Deanna had told him. I saw him three or four times, but nothing really changed for me, so I stopped going.

One of the things I did notice was that when I did go on a date, I had very little patience. If she said something dumb, or did something stupid, like flick her hair or fish for a compliment, I just got internally angry. I did actually talk to that therapist guy about that on one of my few visits – it took me a while to understand I was unconsciously comparing these new women to Deanna and that worried me. I wanted her out of my life; I didn't want to still be in love with her, if that's what it meant.

Jim told me that it was natural that I was using Deanna as a measuring stick. I'd been with her for years, and she'd been a huge part of my life. It wasn't so much that this meant I was still in love with her, more that I didn't have any other kind of comparison I could make. So I compared them to her, or more to the point, to my life with her. And the trouble was, until The Event I thought I had it pretty damn good. An almost perfect married life. The standards I were using were very high and it's unlikely I would find someone that would measure up; I'd have to go on a lot of dates to find that person who would fit what I was apparently looking for, which was a Deanna replacement. Worse still, there really was no way to judge what a long term life with someone would be like, apart from doing it. You just can't judge from the initial impression people try to give you on a date. People are remarkably guarded and present only the best of themselves on a date, I'd learned. You don't find out that someone is a slob or will wear the same panties for a week, until you are practically living with them.

What Jim said did make sense, and it was reassuring to me that I wasn't still desperately in love with Deanna. Or maybe I was, but this wasn't a manifestation of it. Or maybe it was. Hell, I'm damned if I knew any more. I was just trying to get through the day most days.

So I also stopped trying to date. I figured if true love was going to strike again, it would, whether I was looking for it or not. Better to concentrate on the new business and the kids. Which is all just elaborate justification for the fact that I was demoralized, had self-image issues and couldn't take any more rejection, even when I was doing the rejecting.

So there I was; I hadn't really heard much from Deanna besides the contact we needed to have for the kids, despite all her protestations that she was 'coming for me', life was rolling on, we saw the first alpha build of the game – most of the art missing, but the game functional - and I was excited about that.

And then everything changed and shit happened. Unbeknownst to me, across town, in the sunny hamlet of Schaumburg (believe me, that's sarcasm), my life was being planned out for me.

Deanna banged her hand on the coffee table and made some of the coffee cups jump.

"Ladies! Attention! The time has come."

The four other women arranged around the coffee table, stopped talking, and turned to Deanna, who was perched on the end of the long couch. One of them leaned forward and said, "Oh, you are so forceful dear." Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

Deanna threw her a fast frown along with the visual equivalent of a single raised finger and cleared her throat.

"Right. It's time. I got the all clear from Jim this week. Operation Ryan is now in effect."

One of the other women picked up her cup and said, "You sure? Jim said it was all good?"

"Well, he didn't say it in so many words, no," replied Deanna, "but he did say I was ready to move on with my life and that we'd talked out most of what we could talk about. That I should be making plans and 'getting on with it'. I choose to take that as a blessing on my attempt to get Ryan back."

"It's not really a blessing though, is it?" the other woman shot back. Deanna sent another four-letter look at her.

"Look, you gonna help or what? Making smart-ass comments is not helping."

"Oh of course, dear. Just want to be sure that we are all the same page. You've been in therapy for a long time, trying to understand what you did and why. It's been a complicated journey. Frankly, when you petitioned to join our little group here, I was of two minds about you coming in. You obviously had baggage. But I think everyone needs a chance to get their shit together. I just want to be sure that before we embark on manipulating someone's life, we are doing it for the right reasons."

"It's not like that Gina. I'm not manipulating any body. I'm just trying to give Ryan reasons to give me another chance. I'm not the same person any more, who ... did what I did. I need Ryan to look at me again, and to give me the chance to prove I can be trustworthy. That I can be the wife he needs me to be. It's not about manipulation. It's about getting that chance."

Gina sat back, the frown on her face evident. Gina was tall, athletic shaped, with arms that had obviously seen the inside of a gym. She was even wearing those comfortably tight work out clothes that seem so fashionable. The rest of the women couldn't decide if it was because she was truly off to the gym later, or because they were form fitting and displayed her fairly awesome body in very obvious ways. Gina could be abrasive, in your face, but she had a heart larger than her head, or even her boobs. She never shrank from saying what she thought, but she'd give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. If you could peel it off first. And washed it, because it was probably sweaty.

The women sitting round the table flicked their eyes at each other. They'd all sat in that spot and made similar pleas at one point in their lives, and they remembered their own desperation.

"Fine. We are all here for you Deanna. What's your plan?" said another of the women.

"Thank you Rhonda. Ok, so here's the deal. When I sent Ryan that video, he texted me and asked what I could possibly do to overcome the breach we had. I replied 'Anything', but honestly, that was the issue. I didn't know what I could do – and it wasn't fair to just ask him. He obviously didn't know either, or he wouldn't have sent me the text he did. So I have to come up with things I can do that will make Ryan open his heart to me again. I know that trust is something that comes over time, but you do actually have to be there for that trust to grow again. And right now, I'm not. What I need is the chance to show him I've changed. I need him to know I am willing to do anything. So, ladies, how do I do that?"

Rhonda sat back and glanced at the women next to her and said, "Mae, what do you think?"

Rhonda was blond – the kind of thin long blond hair that always needed a hairclip in it. She was average height, average weight, looked good in a sundress, as she was currently wearing. The most outstanding aspect of Rhonda was her accent – Rhonda was Finnish, hailing from Helsinki. She also tended to be blunt, and was, as a typical Finlander, very unconcerned with nudity and most the other taboos of North America. She had a twinkle in her eye, and was one of those women that tended to be disregarded, until she said something absolutely outrageous, in an innocent fashion, forcing you to re-evaluate her.

The older woman, Mae, pursed her lips, sucked in air through them and then said, "Well, I get where you are coming from, but this won't be easy. You need him to look at you in a different way, but also the same way. Your relationship has to be totally new but based on some of the same things you had in the past. You need to remind him of why you were so good together, without reminding him of why it ended. You can't ignore it, but it you can't lead with it either. It's a conundrum, that's for sure."

Mae was older, in her sixties. She looked good and could pass for fifty, in the right light. She'd let her hair go grey naturally, but on her it just looked good, rather than old. She dressed elegantly, and there was obviously some money behind her. Not ostentatious money, just that she had a nice Michael Kors handbag, a nice Skagen watch – all the subtle indicators of class and money without throwing it in other people's faces. She was also partially Texan, with a very slight southern states lilt to her voice.

"I have some ideas I want to pass by you guys, see what you think. But I want to wait for this secret weapon to arrive. See what's that's all about, ya know?" she said, easily.

The doorbell went and Deanna put down her coffee and went to answer it, saying, "That'll be it now!"

She opened the door to reveal a middle aged man, dressed in a suit and tie. He had sandy hair – a full head of it – and he was carrying a bottle. He smiled broadly at Deanna and proffered her the bottle.

"Oh! So nice! Thanks. We won't need it – teetotal for the operational planning – but the gesture is very sweet," said Deanna, taking the bottle and looking at it.

"Ah," said the man, hesitantly, "I didn't know if we'd need to bash it over the edge of the ship, so to speak."

Deanna laughed, and waved him in. "Come and meet the girls."

The man followed her in, closing the door behind her.

"Girls. This is the secret weapon I mentioned!" Deanna said in an excited tone, as she re-entered the room.

All the women sat silently, staring at the newcomer. Mae even put her coffee down. No one said a word – the women stared at the man and the man stared back, and the tension built.

Finally, realizing that the other women weren't as excited as she was, Deanna said, "Oh come on. He's just a guy. It's not like he's going to kill us and lick our bones."

Mae chuckled and suddenly the tension evaporated.

"Trey, these are the girls. That's Mae right there. This is Rhonda, that's Gina. As I said at lunch the other day, this is the Cracked Hearts Club. Girls, this is Trey Morrison. Trey and I dated a bit, but it didn't go anywhere, and now he's a confidante." She overly pronounced Con-fee-don-t, in an elaborate fashion.

Mae was watching Trey's eyes when she said that and saw them very slightly narrow, and filed that away for future discussion.

Trey tilted his head and said, "Ladies."

He then turned to Deanna and said, "I didn't honestly think you were completely serious? These ladies are going to help you get your husband back? How on earth did you guys come to hang out?"

Deanna rolled her lips, in the manner of one who is embarrassed by what they were about to say. "I found them on Craigslist."

Trey looked at all the women and then at Deanna and said, "Seriously?"

"Sure. Why not? The fact is, I was in therapy, my therapist suggested I find a support group. I was thinking of a book club or something, but I found this ad that said 'We help cheaters out of their holes.' I wrote an email, and a year ago got accepted as part of the group. We help each other out, do a sort of twelve-step program, advise each other, that sort of thing. And drink a lot of coffee. Every woman here screwed up her marriage by cheating and getting caught, so there's a lot of empathy and understanding here."

"And these ladies are going to help you?"

"Yes. They all know my story. Well, everyone knows the story – Ryan made sure of that. They all know what I want to do, and they are all willing to help – to be my Greek chorus, so to speak."

"And I'm here... ?"

"For the male perspective. Look, let me get you a coffee, and then you can sit down and I'll explain it all to you."

Deanna busied herself off in the small kitchenette of the apartment she rented, off Roselle Road in Schaumburg. If she stood on tiptoe, she had a view of the Medieval Times dinner theater castle across I-90 from her complex.

When she came back in, Trey was perched on the arm of her couch, politely fielding questions from the group.

" ... and that's what I do. It's not very exciting, but everyone needs insurance."

"Here's to that!" said Rhonda, raising her coffee cup in toast.

"Here you go, Trey," said Deanna, passing over the steaming cup, "white and no sugar, right?"

Trey smiled his acceptance.

"Right, since we are all here, we can begin," said Deanna, settling into the couch.

"I'll recap for Trey's benefit. He already knows the back-story, what happened, what I did, what Ryan did. We've met a few times and he knows most of this. What he doesn't know is what I plan to do next."

Deanna took a deep breath and launched into it. "Basically, I've been working on a plan. Something that will get Ryan to take me back. I've been waiting till my therapist gave me the all clear, but I've had it in mind the entire time. So here goes. I'm going to do a bunch of things, to try to get Ryan to give me a chance. Each of the ladies here is suggesting a course of action, and I'm going to do them all. We are going to tackle Ryan from every direction, to get him to understand how much I need him, and how much he – and the kids – need me."