Chapter 7: Strange Bedfellows

25 July 2015

I lay on my bed spooned against a pillow wondering if it was possible for me to be any more of an asshole. It wasn’t just Ella. It was Alice. And Angie. And all the other women I’d met on this ‘big adventure’ of mine. Did I even have room in my life for a ‘real’ relationship?

The pillow wasn’t answering. I couldn’t have heard it through my sobs even if it had.

I’d been two years on the road. I was thinking I needed to take it easy for a while. Maybe even hide. I got myself online and confirmed my reservations for Hawaii. I’d be on the Big Island for four months. If I liked it, maybe I’d stay longer. I bought a one-way ticket.

About the time I crossed the Mackinac Bridge, I started thinking seriously about book eight of Living Next Door to Heaven. Becoming the Storm. I’d just finished the feel-good book that included Hannah and Elaine winning an Emmy and Cassie asking to be novia to Brian, Josh, and Mary. Life was perfect.

Except I knew what came next. I looked at my notes and my outline and tried to decide how long I could delay. It wasn’t the first time I’d done this. When I introduced her in book two, The Agreement, I knew Denise was going to die. I put it off. Not here. Not now. The group can’t take losing Hannah and Denise in the same book. Not yet. They just got together. Until book four, Deadly Chemistry. Just when Brian and Whitney were giving each other their virginity, it came to an end.

My characters are more real to me than real people.

I didn’t write for a week after that scene and I was so furious when it happened that I sent Brian to kill the son of a bitch that did this. A crime he could never confess to and that would haunt him forever.

My outline was clear, though. ‘Campus shooting. Someone dies. Brian’s ability saves others, but he is blamed.’ The big secret that he carried around with him could be exposed. And someone would die. Who?

It seemed like I had a dozen stories in my library on SOL that I’d started. Some, I kept waiting for the author to post the next chapter of. Others I had to be in the right mood to get into. I sat beside my campfire in Mackinaw City and opened my tablet. Where did I leave off in Road Trip—Jim Mellon’s Erotic Journey Across America by Wolf. It was a pretty good story, but kept getting interrupted by my own journey. But I’d just hit U.S. Hwy 2 and planned to generally follow it all the way back to Seattle. I was a traveling man.

I opened the book and discovered I was just at the point where Jim came off Mackinac Island and headed west on Route 2. Apparently, the natives here never agreed on how to spell it. Perfect. For the next few days we followed the same route, but as Jim headed south to Illinois, I headed west to Minneapolis.

A Long Time Ago: Chasing the Dream

I’d lived twenty-two years in Indiana. I’d heard that Kurt Vonnegut had once quipped that Indiana was a great place to be from. Far from. In the introduction to his book of short stories, Welcome to the Monkey House, Vonnegut talks about his grandfather having been a miserable sick old man and that, when he died, people commented that he was just as well off to be out of it. Vonnegut thought they meant out of Indiana. But he’s a favorite son in the Hoosier State.

While finishing my undergrad work, I was asked to speak at a church near Bippus, Indiana. It was at the intersection of two cornfields. A huge sign at the city limits proclaimed Bippus (population 127) as the home of Chris Schenkel. Chris was a bigtime sportscaster back in the sixties. We take our fame where we can find it.

But, of course, this is about leaving Indiana.

I would probably have stayed right there in Indy if it weren’t for Paula. She wanted to get going and get as far away from Indiana as she could. She said we needed to get our master’s degrees. Fine. Just pick a place and we’ll go. The list came back with three schools on it.

I’d driven through Texas before. I just flat said ‘no’ to Southern Methodist in Dallas. She could go, but I’d stay in Indiana. The director at the University of Washington sent us a very nice letter suggesting the theater department was not in very good shape at the moment and inviting us to apply to join her at the City University of New York. The Big Apple? That kind of scared two country kids from Indiana.

Then there was the University of Minnesota. Minneapolis was, according to our research, the second largest and fastest growing theater center in the country. It was a progressive and livable area. It seemed ideal.

The problem was I got accepted into the grad school and she didn’t.

We decided to go anyway and be there just in case the waitlist cleared. And as you might have guessed if you read Not This Time, we landed a job managing a newly renovated apartment building while we went to school. Free rent. I also landed a teaching assistantship that gave us both in-state tuition rates. And when the waitlist cleared, Paula was quickly admitted to the program.

There was always a little resentment, though, over that initial acceptance/rejection. It was surprising how often it surfaced during our two years of marriage and completion of the MA.

But even after Paula left for sunny California to do more grad work, Minneapolis was a good fit for me. I had work. I had lovers. I had potential. The affair with a student that ended my teaching career and started my marriage to Anabel Lee changed the dream.

Belle was beautiful and sexy and nineteen. She set about proving that she could have anything she wanted, including diamonds and a house in Uptown. The fact that I was expected to pay for her jewelry and house drove me into debt. It was a cinch that I wasn’t going to pay for it with my plays or with the first drafts of my first two novels. So the dream got put on a shelf for a while. I’d come back to it again another time. Sometime after the bankruptcy and the second divorce.

Back to the Road

I lived in Minneapolis for about fifteen years. That was enough time to make some long-lasting friends. You’d think. And there were certainly some people who had been following my journey on Facebook and wanted to get together. CJ was one of those.

Without going into too much backstory, since we were never lovers, I’ll just say CJ became a co-worker in the second year of Belle. Belle was known for inviting her friends to bed with us and then going to sleep while the friend and I played. She’d even pushed me into Lynn’s arms at a Halloween party. In return, I turned a blind eye when she wanted to play with someone. I had few options.

But when CJ came to work at the company that kindly accepted my client base if I would come to work for them after Belle drove me bankrupt, her response was a little different. CJ had been a gymnast. CJ had won a beauty contest. CJ was a singer. CJ was an artist.

CJ was a threat.

“If you sleep with her, I’ll cut your balls off and ram them down your throat,” Belle said after our little company welcoming party. Sadly, when Belle split with me, CJ had already made a commitment and was pregnant.

We stayed friends, though. CJ had been at my reading when I hit Minneapolis on my book tour in 2011. My timing was bad again. She’d just gotten engaged and I hadn’t yet split with Treasure. But as soon as I hit town in July of 2015, my messenger app lit up with a request to have a drink.

We met at the Nicollet Island Inn, one of my favorite places for an elegant meal when I really wanted to impress a date way back when. But the two of us just sat overlooking the river with giant-size margaritas and talked.

It was bad timing again since I was single and she was very firmly married, but we had a good time catching up on everything that had happened over the past thirty years. Her daughter was getting married (too late for that one, too) and she was working with a small orchestra as a flautist. We hadn’t had much time to catch up when I’d been through on my book tour and this was great.

“So, Ari, aren’t you ever going to settle down? I thought you and Treasure were forever,” she said. She’d attended my wedding to Treasure and we’d had a lot of jokes about her coming after me with a shotgun when she was pregnant. Never happened, sadly.

“Where would I settle, CJ? I have a very limited revenue stream that I live on. Not enough to live in either Seattle or Minneapolis. I thought about buying a place in Indiana, but there’s a difference between living in a depressed environment and being in a depressing environment. I haven’t been anyplace else long enough to develop any relationships,” I sighed. “I don’t seem to be attracting that type of woman.”

“So, it takes a woman for you to settle down?” she asked. I grinned.

“Why else?”

My campsite in Minneapolis was cramped. It was a minor miracle that there was anything closer than fifty miles. RV parks are almost as crowded and high priced in Minneapolis as they are around Seattle. I couldn’t believe what I was paying for this. I’d be camping in Walmart parking lots for the next month.

Once I was settled in, I called Becky the Reckless. I hadn’t talked to her since well before spring break.

“Ari? Is that you?”

“It is, beautiful. How are you doing?”

“Surprised to hear from you! But other than that, I’m doing great. Big things!”

“Want to have dinner and tell me about them?”

“You’re here?”

“I got settled into Minneapolis about an hour ago.”

“Minneapolis?”

“Yes. I said I’d check in when I got here. Don’t doubt my word.”

“Yeah, but that was in February. Um ... Ari, I’m in St. Louis.”

“You’re where?”

“After graduation, I got a job at a little local newspaper in Winona. Turns out it’s owned by the same company that owns the big paper here. I put in for an associate editor and got it last month,” she said excitedly. “Oh, Ari! I’m not there. I could so use some of your good loving!”

“I was thinking the same thing, precious. My timing seems to be way off lately.”

Nonetheless, Becky and I talked for a long time. She was wildly excited about her new job, even though it was little more than a copy editor position. Great journalists have to start somewhere.

“I don’t have time for a relationship right now,” she said. “If you were in St. Louis instead of Minneapolis, I’d find a way to work shorter hours while you were here and limp to work in the mornings. I don’t suppose you are coming south from Minneapolis, are you?”

“No. I’m headed up to the Boundary Waters and then across Route 2 back to Seattle. I’m going to spend the winter in Hawaii.”

“Does your trailer float?”

“No. I have to find a place to store it. I’m feeling pretty unanchored at the moment. I might not come back.” Fuck! I’d said it. It had been floating around in my mind for a long time, but I hadn’t put it in words. “I mean, like right away. I just need to see which way the wind blows when I wake up.” Fake cheerfulness.

“Ari, take care, okay? There are a lot of people here who love you.”

There was one friend I always put off calling, even though I loved her and we always had a good time when we got together. The thing was, if I called her first, I’d never get to anyone else.

“You finally got around to me,” she said in answering the phone. She must have caller ID.

“You’re the first person I thought of,” I responded.

“And the last one you called. I saw your notice on Facebook that you got into town two days ago,” she sighed. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”

“I seem to recall attending at least one of your weddings,” I laughed.

“I attended all three of yours. And you were the best part about mine. I thought Rev. Stackhouse would die,” she laughed. The preacher they’d chosen to tie the knot was liberal. He’d agreed that I would be able to intersperse a short pagan blessing. He delivered his little homily and turned it to me. He wasn’t expecting my twisted take on Adam and Eve. ‘You see, ‘ I said, ‘Adam had a clear choice. He wasn’t deceived. He could choose Eve or Paradise. I submit to you that in reaching out his hand and touching the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he chose correctly. For what would paradise be without Eve?’ Apparently, the blessing lasted longer than the marriage.

“I’ve got two more days in Minneapolis. My time is yours.”

“Have you been to the tobacco shop?”

“No. Haven’t made it to Uptown yet.”

“It’s across the street from where it used to be. Get cigars. I’ll bring scotch. See you at seven tonight.”

That was it. I drove to Uptown and selected half a dozen cigars that cost me an arm and a leg. Then I went back to the RV park and went to sleep. I figured this was the last rest that I’d get until I left Minneapolis.

A Long Time Ago: Apples. Pears. Cu-cum-bers!

The last show I designed in my undergrad days wasn’t even in the theater. It was in the basement of a dorm that was about to be torn down in what had once functioned as a coffee house. There was a small stage in the corner of the room that was mostly for poetry reading and guitar music. We crammed three actresses, an entrance, and two painted walls into it. Bill gave us permission to use six lights and a portable control board from the studio.

Samantha directed. I only remember the name of one of the actresses. Nicki played the role of the unbalanced mother, Beatrice, in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Talk about type casting. I think it was the first time she’d actually appeared onstage. For four years, she’d hung around on the fringe of the theater group, helping backstage, but she’d never been under the lights. She was brilliant.

Paula was busy preparing for the wedding the following weekend, so I went to the cast party after I’d disposed of the cardboard set and taken the lights back to the studio. The cast party was held at the TeePee Restaurant, a favorite hangout for the theater. This was long before the days of smoking ordinances. As soon as Rick slid in beside Sam, he lit up. About three cigarettes later, Nicki nudged me and traded places to get a little farther away from the ashtray.

“Smokers should have to eat their butts,” she snarled. We were all quiet a second as it sank in and then burst out laughing. We had a couple drinks with our late-night dinners. I loved their chef’s salad because they put shredded beets on it. About 1:30 in the morning, Nicki leaned against me. “I’m sleepy. Take me home, Ari.” I paid my part of the bill and Nicki unstably leaned against me as we made it to my little Corvair.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll have you back to your dorm in no time.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Take me to your place. The dorm monitor can’t stumble drunkenly into the dorm. I’ll sleep it off and then go back.”

“Sure,” I said. I probably sighed a little, too. I’d probably end up sleeping on the floor.

I’ve mentioned my little flat above the Styrofoam factory someplace before, so I won’t repeat myself. It was Nicki’s first—and last—time to see it. She stood at the top of the stairs from which she could see the whole thing. She headed for the bathroom and I decided I’d fix myself a cup of coffee. I had instant for just this kind of occasion and found that if you used enough of it, it wasn’t bad. I’ll tell about Granny B some other time. The kettle had just started to whistle when Nicki came out of the bathroom. All she had on was her bra and panties.

Well, that was a relief. Last time she’d threatened to pull her pants down, I discovered she wasn’t wearing panties.

“Go on to bed. I’ll have a cup of coffee and sleep in the chair.”

“Don’t be stupid, Ari. Come to bed.” I turned toward her as her bra hit the floor. She shimmied out of her panties and pulled the covers back. She stood and faced me. In deference to the play, she’d dyed her hair red. Her bush was dark brown. Her breasts—I estimated them to be a little more than a handful, capped with dark, swollen nipples. “Well? Get undressed and come to bed. I want to be held. I’m a star.”

What had I gotten myself into?

I was a guy. Staring at a naked woman. No, she wasn’t svelte. Maybe a little overweight. Certainly not toned. But naked. I ignored the fresh cup of coffee and stripped as I approached the bed.

“Are you sure about this, Nicki?”

“I’ve never been held by a man at night,” she whimpered. “Never shown myself to anyone. Never felt ... Damn it, Ari! Get in bed and hold me.” Ah fuck! I was stripped down to my briefs and started to get into bed. Nicki stopped me. “You’re still overdressed.” I rolled my eyes, but finished stripping and got into bed. Nicki backed up against me and pulled an arm around her. Then she relaxed and I could feel her breathing become more regular.

This wasn’t about sex. This was my lonely and slightly crazy friend needing to be held. I started to relax. Then Nicki took a deep breath, turned her head to the ceiling and called out, “Apples. Pears. Cu-cum-bers!” It was the line from the show that had gotten her character dubbed ‘Betty the Loon.’ In another few seconds, she was asleep.

I woke up a little chilled. I reached to pull the blanket up and couldn’t find it. I must have knocked it off in the middle of the night. Then I remembered Nicki. Just like a woman. She probably had the entire blanket cocooned around her. I managed to get my eyes open.

It wasn’t what I expected. The blanket and sheet were shoved down beneath my feet. I was lying on my back, stark naked. Seated tailor fashion, Nicki was beside me staring at my cock. She hadn’t noticed I was awake and try as I might, I couldn’t stop my cock from hardening under her gaze.

“Uh ... Nicki...” She glanced at me and then back to my cock.

“It just gets big then little then big then little. You were asleep. What makes it do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Fleeting thoughts. Dreams. Naked girls staring at me.”

“I couldn’t help it. I’ve never seen one in its natural state. I mean a live one.”

“It’s not separate from me, Nicki. I’m what’s alive. How long have you been staring at me?”

“Oh. An hour. I guess an hour and a half.” Just staring? “You’re awake now. Why’s it hard?”

“Um ... because you’re naked next to me. I can see your breasts and your nipples. I can even see your pussy,” I said. She looked down at herself and started to close her legs, then opened them farther.

“Does that mean you want to fuck me?”

“Um ... It means my body has prepared for sexual intercourse. It doesn’t mean my head has agreed.”

“I’d do it. If it wasn’t for Paula.” She flopped down on the bed beside me then rolled to hug me. “It was nice to be held last night. Thank you.” My head had finally gotten the message to my cock that it was not needed and it started to deflate. Nicki seemed no longer interested. “I’d fight her for you. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m OCD, paranoid schizophrenic, and manic depressive. I’d have to kill too many people and tie you up in the basement. I’m just not ready for the responsibility of a man.”

“You know that’s not how relationships work, don’t you, Nicki?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s like you said about your cock. My head knows but my body is slow at getting the message. I hope I didn’t fuck things up last night. You’ll still be my friend, won’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I will, Nicki.”

“You’re the only friend I’ve got.”

Paula and I got married the next weekend, graduated the weekend after that, and moved to Minnesota two weeks later. It’s funny that of all the people I knew in college, Nicki was the only person who made sure I had all her contact information. I mean, everything. She gave me three different phone numbers, two addresses, and the names and addresses of three people she said would always know where she was.

People forget how difficult it was to keep track of others when one moved back in the old days. We didn’t have Internet and social media. We sent Christmas cards. We made calls from phones that had cords running into walls. And paid long distance charges. And we lost touch with people.

We didn’t have to worry about that with Nicki. Midway through the second year of our master’s programs she showed up on our doorstep. She’d just been through a nasty divorce from her husband of six months. Everything she owned was stuffed in the back of a rickety Ford Falcon station wagon.

“I had to leave town,” she said. “I tried to call you, but you don’t have an answering machine. Can I stay with you for a couple of weeks while I find a place to live and a job?”

Paula and Nicki weren’t close. I think Paula still blamed her for the whole ‘Ari for Campus Boyfriend’ campaign in college. But that had gotten rid of Georgia and no one was killed. It had also afforded me my one premarital glimpse of Paula naked. Paula would have preferred the scenario where Georgia was dead and Nicki was incarcerated for life. But we couldn’t turn away a college friend in need. And what’s a couple of weeks?

A couple months. Nicki seriously underestimated how long it would take her to find a job. Really, the most serious difficulty it had for Paula and me was that we had to confine our fighting to the bedroom and not go yelling through the whole apartment. Nicki quietly occupied the eight-by-eight room at the front of our little apartment where I’d originally set up my drafting table for designing scenery. It wasn’t like we had a ton of furniture. The table fit fine in a corner of the living room.

The downside of confining our fights to the bedroom was that the bedroom became a place to fight rather than fuck. By the time Nicki got a job as a photographer for school pictures, I was spending almost as many nights on the sofa in the living room as in bed. But she did move out and found her own place. And when Paula left, Nicki was still around as my long-time friend and sometimes confidante, but never as a lover.

She got along well with Anabel Lee—maybe because they were both crazy. She was even our wedding photographer. Nicki would occasionally remark that Belle needed to have her meds adjusted. I knew Belle wasn’t on any meds. She considered her psychosis to be normal. After I’d met her mother, I agreed.

“Ari, she’s going to leave you,” Nicki said one night as we sat on the screened front porch of Belle’s and my home. We were practicing a new habit—sitting up late at night smoking cigars and drinking scotch. Belle had long since gone to bed. Nicki was not on the list of people Belle invited to share our bed. Nicki’s apartment was across the street.

“Yeah, probably,” I said. I stretched out my legs and took a long drag on my cigar, watching the smoke wind upward as I slowly blew it out of my mouth. Smoke, yes. Inhale, no. Safe, right? “I sure can pick them.”

“No kidding. She’s already started packing things. Nothing significant. Nothing you’d miss if you weren’t thinking about it. But there are neatly labeled boxes already in the attic,” Nicki said. “She got me to help her move a couple.”

“She’s just storing things away that we aren’t using right now.”

“Mmmhmm. Why are you staying with her? Why don’t you tell her to just go?”

“I can’t. You know, I promised. I married her. And I’m not sure what I’ll do without her, but as long as she’ll stay with me, I’ll be here.”

The last word was a few days after it finally blew up and Belle moved everything she could transport out of the house. Nicki brought a bottle of Macallan twelve-year-old and half a dozen cigars on Friday night.

“Hope you didn’t have a big date planned for tonight,” Nicki said. “I can’t drink all this and smoke all these by myself.”

“You planning to get me drunk and take advantage of me?” I asked. “I might not be as polite this time as I was last time.”

“By the time I’m done with you tonight, I don’t expect ‘polite’ will enter into the equation. ‘Able’ might be a better choice of words,” Nicki said. We settled into some serious drinking and moaning. By the end of the first cigar, my head was light. At the end of the second, I was crying and telling Nicki how much I loved Belle and couldn’t believe she left me. By the time the third was a dead ash, Nicki was supporting me up the stairs to put me to bed.

I woke up naked, as usual. My head was pillowed against Nicki’s bare breast. That was not usual. It was nice. I thought she was a little thinner than when I’d last seen her breasts. Her dark nipple was an inch away from me and I was just fascinated with how it seemed to go from soft to hard while I watched it. I lifted my lips and sucked gently on the turgid nipple. Nicki moaned. I moaned. And ran to the bathroom, just in time to offer the remains of last night’s scotch to the porcelain god. Repeatedly. How much did I drink last night?

When I finally felt like I could stand and walk back to the bedroom, I found Nicki dressed and waiting for me. It looked like fresh sheets on the bed.

“You got dressed,” I said. Could I be more obvious?

“I didn’t come here to get laid,” she said.

“Why...” I started. “Why did you come over and get me drunk?”

“Two reasons. First, you were never going to open up and talk while you were sober. Don’t bother to contradict me. You weren’t. Second, I figured I could show you what real pain was like. Now you can’t dwell on the imagined hurt of Belle.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Get in bed, Ari. You aren’t going to be fit for a few more hours. I’ll check on you tonight.”

“Thank you, Nicki. You’re a real friend.”

“There is one thing, though,” she said. “You know Paula and I still exchange Christmas cards. We’re not close, but we keep in touch. Do you mind if I don’t keep in touch with Anabel Lee? She really needs drugs.”

“Nicki,” I said crawling into bed. I realized I was still naked. “I’d appreciate it if you never mention her name to me again. Okay?”

“Agreed. There’s water and aspirin on the nightstand when you think you can handle it.”

Nicki adored Treasure.

For good reason. Not that Treasure was perfect, but when she’d have a little blow-up and I didn’t blow up back at her, she’d smile and say, “I need to write another thank you note to Paula and Belle.” Believe me, nothing that Treasure could throw at me came close to what I’d lived through. And she simply accepted Nicki as my oldest and dearest friend. As my friend, she was Treasure’s friend.

“I’d like to do your wedding photography as my gift to you,” Nicki said one evening when we’d all gone out to dinner. Treasure looked at me and then turned back to Nicki.

“Nicolette, I love your photography and thank you for offering this precious gift. If that’s really what you want to do, we’ll accept it gladly,” Treasure said. She was so good at handling things like this. “That being said, we were thinking you would be a member of the wedding party. Wouldn’t you rather do that?”

“You want me to be a bridesmaid?” she asked in wonder.

“No,” I said. “I’d like you to be my best friend. And no, I won’t call you best man.” I’d truly never seen Nicki speechless. She launched herself across the table and embraced Treasure. Hmm. I thought I’d asked her.

“I’m happy to be Ari’s best man. Or friend, if he wants to call me that. But, Treasure, you will never have to worry about me. I’ve never had a best friend before. I will never betray the trust you are showing in me.”

And then, twenty-some years later, Treasure and I got divorced.

Back to Nicki

Nicki knocked on my trailer door at six-thirty.

“Nice digs,” she laughed as I showed her in. “You must get lost in here.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Lost to the world.”

“God, it’s good to see you, Ari,” she said. She set her package on the table and turned to give me a big hug. We held it a lot longer than people hold the hug of a normal friend. It was almost as long as a daughter hug. Maddie loved to hug me and just pretend she was a little girl being held by her daddy. I loved it, too. But Nicki was my oldest and dearest friend. She’d seen me through three weddings and three divorces, through laughter and tears, through the deaths of my parents, the birth of my child, and had never missed being present for a birthday that ended in zero.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get back here on my first swing around the country. It was that trip on U.S. 20 that I wanted to make all my life. I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking of friends,” I said.

“You went through Dallas and posted that you could just turn north, follow I-35, and be in Minneapolis in two days. I sat in my room screaming ‘Do it!’ Then you turned south and went to Corpus Christi. I considered packing up my car and driving down to surprise you. But you’re a moving target and I had a wedding to photograph that weekend,” she said.

“Well, we’d both have been surprised,” I laughed.

“Don’t tell me you have a girlfriend already! Where do you keep her?” Nicki opened the bathroom door to see if someone was hiding. “Damn, now that’s small!”