Chapter 1

My wife is a sort of gypsy. In the years since our marriage, she has initiated several moves. Typically, we would talk about how this place or that might be interesting, we would talk about this or that irritation with our then-current residence. Several weeks later, she would pop up with a job offer somewhere else, and off we would go.

One of these moves took us back to her hometown. I did not mind. Her parents were (thankfully) a half a continent away, I had family and friends one or two counties over, and my ER Nursing employment left me very mobile. We went house hunting, and found a nice place with a pleasant yard in a nice part of the town. The neighbors seemed to keep to themselves, and that worked for me. Our old home sold, we made an offer on the target place that got accepted, and off we went on another moving adventure.

Once we were settled in, I began again to work. One morning, after another exciting, fun filled night of Fighting Disease And Saving Lives, I returned home to find my wife nearly trembling with excitement.

“Do you know what?”, she pounced on me once I got halfway into the door.

I was game. “You won the lottery, and I can call in tonight?”

She was not. “Nope! Guess who is living next door to us?”

It had, for all that, been a long night. “The neighbors?”, I guessed, unhelpfully.

“Nope!”, she replied, adding to my confusion. All these years, I had been deluded into thinking the neighbors lived next door to us. Who knew? “It’s Ben and Linda! You know! I went to high school with her! They just got back into town, they were on vacation visiting her parents in Iowa, Oh, Sam, this is so cool!”

Linda was one of my wife’s high school teammates, as they had played soccer together, and she had remained in sporadic touch as each had moved along their life’s trajectories. Brenda had known Ben, had dated him for a while, in fact, but there had been some sort of history, there, that I had not fully remembered. Either way, Brenda was bouncing in excitement, as she bubbled over with what she wanted to tell me.

She continued. “I know this weekend is your weekend off. I started on the yardwork yesterday once I got home, I’ll finish it off tonight after work. I arranged for us to go out with them this weekend. We’ll see a movie and have dinner. It will be nice. Oh, Sam, this will be such a good time!”

I was not so sure, but Brenda seemed all psyched up about it. We hadn’t done any sort of activity that she had initiated for some time, so I figured it was time for her to pick the outing. The weekend came, all the chores got finished, and we got dressed and ready to go. While we were dressing, Brenda again demonstrated her excitement, telling me that Linda was excited to meet me.

Once we were together, I could imagine what that history might look like. Ben was an asshole. Now I try to say things nicely, and I was doing just that. To state it politely, he was an asshole. He started with me with the “Hail fellow! Well met!” sort of bullshit that assumes familiarity I did not feel. He moved on to elbow nudges when one of his off color jokes, frequently at my wife’s expense, hit the air. His next move was to sit overly close to Brenda, and I found myself feeling on edge more and more with each passing leer.

Linda seemed to be nice enough, although it was difficult to determine given that her light seemed to be dimmed by her husband’s assholery. (did I mention that I thought that he was an asshole? Just being sure.) She was around 5 foot 4, probably 130 pounds. Dark hair framed her face, falling just to her shoulders. She looked to me to be a pixie-like woman, shapely and fit, and completely overshadowed by her loud obnoxious husband. I wondered how she had come to marry him.

Finally the night came to an end, and Brenda and I returned home. Brenda seemed introspective, as we drove home from the theater.

“You remember, I used to date Ben, way back in school, right?”, she began.

“I remember you mentioned that,” I allowed.

“Ever wonder what happened?”, she asked.

“Nope. I just assumed it was one of those high school romances, that simply fizzled out, and each of you moved on.”

“Well”, she continued, “It didn’t simply fizzle out. Tonight made me remember just how much of a insensitive jerk Ben was. We broke up when he dated my best friend. Well, she became my ex-best friend, and Ben bragging all over school about doing each of us certainly helped me to move on. In fact, to hear him tell it, he did both of us, on the same date. You can remember how high school was: it took me an entire semester to hear the end of that story! For the balance of my senior year, no nice boy would ask me out. I spent my weekends with boys from a high school in the next town over. It wasn’t until I got into college that I finally put his bullshit bragging behind me. That dumbass nearly ruined my last year of school, and ruined a friendship with a girl I had known my entire life! Tonight he started in with me just as if I had forgotten and forgiven him for his lies and innuendo. Honey, thank you for letting me set this evening up. You helped me remember just how much I hate him.”

“Brenda, that is a lot of emotion to have over some dolt from high school. I agree with you, he is a waste of protein, but I don’t see myself more engaged than that. And, didn’t you say Linda was one of your friends? How did you and she get along tonight? Things between you two seemed pretty good, right?”

“We didn’t get a lot of time to talk, Ben was nearly all over me. We did talk long enough to agree to meet next weekend. We’ll meet for lunch, do some shopping, and visit. I’m looking forward to catching up. I’m dying to know what drove her to marry Ben. Maybe she couldn’t tell he is such a jerk. I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out.” She sighed. “I’m disappointed. Ben is such a clod, I don’t know if I can stand to see him again. That would leave you out in the cold, when Linda and I go out from time to time. Let’s see what develops, OK?”

That was fine with me, and I was a fan of any process that did not involve me having to spend time with Ben, or worry about him manhandling my wife. We parked the car, entered the house, and, locking up for the night, went to bed.

The following weekend, after I had completed the fun of yard work, and cleaning out the garage, Brenda came home from her soiree with Linda. She had evidently had a good time, and bubbled on about the conversations they had shared. I listened closely enough to interject an occasional “You don’t say!”, or “Uh huh,” more to act as if I cared about their visit than anything else. That changed, and Brenda had my undivided attention once she got to the part about “Linda wanted to go out with us again. I know you cannot stand Ben, but it would make me happy if you could go along with me this one time.”

Well, Brenda was spot-on: I had no use for Ben. As for Linda, she was attractive but, gee, I was happily married to Brenda, and really had no desire to remedy that, like by cheating with the next door neighbor, just to draw an example out of thin air. Brenda seemed to be excited about a return engagement, so, in the interests of promoting the domestic tranquility, I shut up and soldiered along with my wife’s plan.

As it developed, Brenda wanted to attend a street fair the following weekend, in a neighboring town. Linda was up for it, and our plans now included meeting at the fair, wandering about for a few hours, and dining out.

The fair weekend arrived, we drove separately, and met up as arranged. I took Brenda’s hand, and the four of us wandered about. Our corner of the state has a number of vineyards, and the proprietors took this opportunity to showcase their products. I’m not much of a drinker, but, evidently, Ben does not have that particular problem. By the time our supper was completed, Ben was a stumbling, weaving mess. He and Linda had arrived in his truck, and apparently he had never taught Linda to drive a stick shift. There was no way I was going to sit by and have him collide with some innocent third party, so Brenda, former farm girl that she was, was nominated to drive drunken Ben home. Linda offered to keep me company on the way home. Plans made, we split up, and Brenda, having relieved Ben of his keys, belted his somnolent form into the passenger seat, and set off for home.