Chapter 3

Some preliminary comments ... First, there was a foul up. Part Two was at first rejected; for reasons I still don’t understand. That explains the delay.

Second, I read all the remarks about the first chapter. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion; several were thought provoking, a few were right on the money, while others seemed more intent on yelling at me. Regardless, everything I’ve written since 2011 has been in the Loving Wives category; that’s where the thinking people go. Remember, I really like fives.

And now, on to part three.

Spring was coming, and with it a new wave of school activities. There were dances, lacrosse and baseball games, and parties. Jessie missed most of them, but Gary made it a point to get to almost everything. He normally coached J.V. lacrosse at the local high school; he dropped it, his girls needed him more. Melanie was playing baseball, and she wasn’t very good. Dorothy was a mediocre lacrosse player, but little Katherine ended up playing freshman midfield! Win, lose, or draw, good, fair, or lousy, the girls were always on the same page; they rooted each other on, and he was satisfied.

Jessie did show up once to watch Melanie play; she came with a man in tow. Dorothy and Katy saw them, and pointedly avoided them both. Jessie and her friend left early, but not before she made one of her special performances. He knew the girls were disappointed in their mom; she was acting like she didn’t care. They’d been watching Melanie not play well when Jessie and her companion made their way up the bleachers. He was young, tall and handsome; too young, too tall, and too handsome for her. It made Gary’s skin crawl to think that kid might be screwing his soon to be ex-wife.

Jessie was wearing a pair of dark blue slacks. She had a beige sweater on her arm. Her breasts were wrapped in an expensive looking tailored white blouse with several of the top buttons undone. She walked up the bleacher steps, every step breathed sensuality. Gary’s throat was dry; she still had what he wanted. He was beside Katy when Jessie leaned way forward and placed a big kiss on Katy’s cheek. Gary could see so far down her blouse her aureole was visible. That soft skin, those tantalizing brown buds; it made him feel so ... uncomfortable. She never looked at him, but he knew by her expression she knew how he felt. He hated her. She had been his, but she’d thrown herself and all they had away. He might still hunger for her, but he could never forgive her.

Dorothy’s secret spy at Jessie’s law firm had been feeding them all kinds of information, some of it very disquieting. One thing, her spy said Jessie’s relationship with at least one of the older partners had become strained, and that was playing out with some of the other partners. It sounded to Gary like Jessie had become an outsider at her work. He wondered if her “event” with Snyder had leaked out, and it if had, how the partners reacted to it.

In another part of the forest the girls noticed how Jessie kept finding reasons to stay later and later at work, and recently she’d even missed coming home altogether a few times. What Dorothy found out was Jessie had obtained an apartment just a few blocks from her office. She’d become so preoccupied with work she started to neglect her home and the girls almost altogether. Worse their secret spy told them Jessie’s workload had become so heavy she’d become impossible to deal with, she stayed way too late into the night, she’d been missing appointments and meetings, and their spy believed she was taking some kind of stimulant or medication. Twice she said she’d found Jessie asleep at her desk.

It seemed to Gary, one or more of the senior partners had their knives out for his almost ex-wife. They might have had a change of heart about her partnership; if that was the case, then Jessie’s life had only just begun to go to hell.

Gary decided it was time to either step up or step away; for the sake of his daughters he decided to step up. He took a few more days off again, and staked out Jessie’s downtown environment. He found her efficiency; it was one block from her law firm. Blame him for being a snoop, but he needed to get in that apartment. He spoke to Dorothy, and she finagled Jessie’s keys from her pocketbook while she was napping. She went to a nearby locksmith, and got duplicates of everything.

Gary slipped downtown each afternoon and watched. Mostly she went straight home, but occasionally she went to her efficiency. One morning after she’d overnighted downtown he sneaked in. He felt like he was James Bond! He prowled around looking over everything. He opened her small refrigerator; there wasn’t much there, mostly yogurt. He checked her cupboards, nothing. He peeked in the bathroom – Bingo! Her medicine chest was crammed with small containers. He found Advil: OK, no big deal. But there was other stuff, Hydrocodone, OxyContin, Oxycodone, something that looked like Valium, and another container with Xanax. There were pills that looked like Benzedrine, Dexedrine, Adderall and other stuff he never saw before. He pocketed one of each, and checked the prescriptions and who the doctors were.

God almighty! Her prescriptions were under all different names! She was using her maiden name, and his mother’s name was on one. Did his mother know? He thought the stuff she was using was closely monitored, but he guessed if she had the money she could get away with it.

He returned to the main room and checked out her bed. Under the bed he found a vibrator. Surprisingly Jessie had bought a punching bag. There were some small leather gloves on the floor, and at the top of the bag was a picture of some old man. It occurred to Gary that the face belonged to one of the senior partners. So she wanted to beat up an old man. He thought things might be making some sense. He wished he knew more.

It wasn’t the bathroom and it wasn’t the bed that got him though; it was her small desk. He found tissues all over the place, Kleenex everywhere, and they looked like they’d been used, not to wipe a nose or clean off vaginal juices, but to wipe away watery eyes. That was just a guess, he wondered, had she been crying that much? What else would they be for; surely all that tissue couldn’t be just to wipe a gooey crotch, besides, they were too far from the bed.

Her desk was stacked, piled with an assortment of papers. There was a place for a laptop or a kindle or a tablet or something, but he figured she took that with her. Everything was in disarray. Some of the stuff was work related, but most of it looked personal; stupid stuff he thought until he checked closer.

What was in that discombobulated pile of nonsense? It was awful; his stomach felt like it was on a roller coaster. He needed a coke or a bottle of Tums. There were heaps of scrap paper, some full paged but mostly just torn and wrinkled scraps, and what did they say? His name was on most of them, and affixed beside his name were all kinds of words; terms like “woe, agony, misery, alone, despair, sorrow, shame, sorry, lonely, guilt, pain, kill, and hate.” “Angry and punish” showed up a lot.

One said ‘low, low, low,’ over and over again just ‘low, low, low’ and then, ‘give up, die’. There were other words attached to his name; things like “bland, boring, wimp, loser, failure, balless, limp dicked wonder, weakling, and soft.” There were phrases; things like, “go back, undo, and love me, need me.” Other little scraps were littered with things like “love, fix, afraid, save.” One paper read Melanie, Dorothy, Katherine, and below their names was written over and over again, “mine, mine, mine.” One said “help, help, help” over and over again. Another had Gary written in big bold letters with the word “need, need, need” written over and over again. He realized he was looking at the innermost feelings of her heart. He saw with finality how truly desperate she was.

He found some poetry too. Some of it he recognized as stuff she’d written in high school and when they were first married. They were all love poems. He read and reread all of them. He wondered, ‘How many times can a person include the name Gary in a single love poem. Some of the stuff was way out in left field; one was simply a long series of lines with just his name written and printed in different styles. There were other poems; sonnets she must have read and memorized when she was in school. He recalled she’d taken an inordinate number of literature classes as an undergraduate.

There were other names on some of those scraps of paper; one name that showed up a lot was Jeffrey Snyder. His name didn’t have the same words attached; no, his name was packaged with terms like “fuck, kill, strangle, neuter, castrate,” and one memorable phrase, “cut off his balls.” It occurred to Gary, maybe Jeffrey Snyder was causing some problems at her office. Then he thought, dimwit he was, of course Snyder was.

Gary had to admit it, he felt some serious remorse. There it was, there she was; her efficiency apartment had become her little hide out, her safe haven. He thought about it. He thought about it and her a lot, and it occurred to him this was another manifestation of her obsessive nature, or her awareness that people were out to destroy her. Regardless, she couldn’t express her hidden thoughts at work, and she certainly couldn’t let the children know; maybe he was wrong, but he thought her ambition, or her resentment of others, was destroying her.

His heart was breaking. She needed him. He needed to help her. He needed to be there for her. Sure he cared about what a bitch she’d become and how many men she might have fucked, but he was still, for a while at least, her husband. She was the mother of his girls. He was dad, the dad, and for a while he was still the husband too, divorce or not he was still her husband. He believed he was still her “go to” guy. What was it, “for richer or poorer, for better for worse?” But what could he do? She wouldn’t let him near her. It was sad, he knew there could be no reconciliation, but some kind of rapprochement was needed, if only for the girls.

~~~V~~~

Gary intuited his own stupidity, spying on his wife; some might say he was stalking her. So what, he kept at it. It was Good Friday, he usually got off school around 3:30, but being a holiday he was off all day. Just the day before, Maundy Thursday, Carolyn had stopped by his office; it had been the third time. The first time was when she brought him the cake. The second time was the Monday after Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week; she’d appeared with a tin of chocolate chip cookies. They’d sat together talking; she talked about her mother, he talked about his daughters. Neither said much really, mostly they looked at each other, she was so pretty. That Monday she’d worn an open necked V-shaped teal blouse and dark colored slacks. The slacks were loose, but up around her mid-drift they were tighter. She sat, legs not crossed but close together. He got a clear shot of her crease. She had a real narrow waist. Being taller it was easy, without being obvious, to see down her blouse, she had on a pretty brassiere. She had pretty breasts, small, pear shaped, pink and turned up, they looked real firm. He wondered what they might feel like in his mouth.

After some several minutes she looked at her watch and murmured, “Well, gotta go.”

He said, “Another good bye.” He didn’t know why he said that, it sounded forlorn, close to stupid. She didn’t get up. He didn’t move. Their faces were close; he could smell her scented breath, mint. He had his hands on his knees, she the same, her slacks etched her crease. He couldn’t explain it, didn’t try. He leaned forward and kissed her, she kissed him back, no touching, just lips on lips, hers were soft. She hadn’t moved, but she had responded, it excited him; they were sharing a kiss and it was nice, not sexy nice, just warm and affectionate nice.

Their lips clung to each other for several seconds; her tongue flittered over his lips. Then she moved. She turned her head aside, she was blushing. She said, “I really do have to leave. I have my class.”

He knew, he was blushing too. He said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

She started to stand up but stopped. She reached across and pulled his head forward. They kissed again. He cupped his hands under her breasts, they were firm. She placed a hand on the inner part of his thigh. He froze. He had an erection and didn’t want her to know. She touched his crotch. She started rubbing her hand up and down his penis from outside of his slacks. It took only a few feathery strokes of her fingertips and he ejaculated.

She leaned forward and rested her forehead on his chest. She whispered, “I shouldn’t have.” She paused and added, “I’m not a virgin. I’ve had boyfriends.”

He apologized again, “I’m sorry. I guess I ruined the moment.”

She looked up at him with wildly dilated eyes, “Oh no, not at all.” Her chair screeched as she got up and sped from his office.

He sat there several minutes, boxers wet and sticky, nerves frayed. What had he done? He felt different, the world was different. Everything had changed.

Gary remembered looking out his office window; clouds scuttered across a greying sky. What was he doing? He wasn’t eighteen anymore, he had children, he had responsibilities. His wife, bitch that she was, still needed him. He knew there was no going back, but he needed to make sure ... of something.

On a good day Gary could be outside Jessie’s office by 4:15, but on this day he hung back. Like he thought a moment earlier, it was Good Friday. The traffic was always busy downtown; his jeep didn’t stand out. The days were getting longer but she never left before 6:30-7:00. The girls, usually Melanie, would call and tell him if she wasn’t coming home so he hung out. The section of town where she worked and frequently spent the night was safe during the day, but at night, when the businesses closed, things got rougher.

So it was Good Friday, he was camped out in his car. He was near the end of another old book, “Vanity Fair” by Thackeray, not half bad actually. Like in all espionage stories the book was a cover; he was really thinking about the day before, Maundy Thursday.

Well, before Maundy Thursday had been Wednesday. He was confusing everything. Carolyn had been in his office on Monday; that was when she touched him. He hardly slept that Monday night and all day Tuesday she was all he thought about. She hadn’t stopped in Tuesday and it worried him so Wednesday sixth period he did something he vowed never to do.

Gary was a department head and for department heads the teacher’s lounge was unofficially off limits; that was where teachers talked, sometimes about their students but sometimes about each other. Good department heads had to keep their heads above that sort of baloney, but he wanted to see Carolyn and it was their mutually free time. He decided to visit the teacher’s lounge. She was there.

The place was crowded, he took a seat off in a corner; some teachers got quiet, but most ignored him. Several were seated at a big table in the center of the room. Carolyn was at the table. They were all talking about something. He wasn’t paying close attention. He was discreetly watching Carolyn; she looked beautiful, she had on a dark blue dress, like something someone would wear if they were going on a date. He wondered if she had a date. Had she decided to pass him by? He felt a chill just thinking about it.

They were all talking. Carolyn usually kept quiet, at least at faculty meetings she did. She said something. He wasn’t sure what it was, but one of the men, a Mr. Johnson, a man for whom he had little respect because he missed too much time, raised his voice and said to Carolyn, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her face went paIe, she slightly shook her head and mumbled something and put her hands on her lap.

Johnson had used his deep voice and loud mouth to make her flinch back, and Gary didn’t like it. He got up and walked over and took an empty seat at the table. He wasn’t sure what the topic was, but he felt put off. He interrupted and said, “I don’t know, but I think I’d kind of like to hear what Ms. Campaneris was going to say.”

Everybody got real quiet. Johnson smirked and said, “She didn’t have anything to say.”

Carolyn looked funny, a little frightened maybe. Gary knew the guy was an asshole, “No I want to hear what she wanted to say.”

One of the women looked around, nodded and said, “Yeah, me too.” Others nodded.

Smart-assed Johnson turned to Carolyn and said, “OK, Miss Campaneris what is it?”

She said, “We were talking about racial injustice, and I was going to say...”

Johnson, who was black, interrupted her again, “How can you know anything about injustice? You’re white.”

Gary interrupted him, “No you’re wrong Mr. Johnson. Ms. Campaneris isn’t just white, she’s Italian, and they’ve certainly had their share of mistreatment.”

Johnson replied, “Yeah but not like black people. We were...”

Gary interrupted him again, “Yeah we all know, Jim Crow and before that slavery. Only American Indians have had it worse, but I think Carolyn, I mean Ms. Campaneris is entitled to her opinion and I think she has a right to express it,” then Gary added, “Don’t you?”

Johnson replied, “Sure she has an opinion, and she’s entitled to it, but we’ve all heard it before.” He looked around the room and no one said anything so he went on, “Besides why are you here? This is the teacher’s room. You’re a department head, anything you say here is like you throwing your authority around and that’s not fair.”

Gary nodded, “You’re right, and I’m not staying. I only stopped in to see Ms. Campaneris. We had a brief consultation Monday, and I was afraid something I might have said upset her.” He looked around the room and the way the eyes were rolling he realized he might have stepped over the line. He didn’t flinch. He looked at Carolyn and said, “I hope I didn’t upset you Monday. If I did I’m sorry.”

He got one of the most gorgeous smiles he ever saw, and then she said, “No Mr. McGowan you didn’t upset me. In fact I was afraid I might have put you off.”

Gary was happy! She was so beautiful in that blue dress, he blushed.

Carolyn looked at Mr. Johnson, “You’re right in what you said about American bigotry. We live in a sick society. I was just saying the only way we can wear it down is by producing more minority intellectuals, more black scientists, and more black leaders. I think success builds respect and tears down the walls of ignorance and prejudice.”

She was great, and she wasn’t alone. Mrs. Freeman, an older black woman and a hardcore militant for racial justice and women’s rights spoke out, “Carolyn’s right on about that, and it’s our job as teachers to produce the scientists and intellectuals of the future.” She eyed Johnson and said, “But we all have to be here every day to do that don’t we Mr. Johnson.”

Johnson muttered something about personal business, but Gary had stopped listening, he was looking at Carolyn. She was looking at him. She had her bobbed hair up and one of the locks had come loose and was drifting down over her right eye, she was so sexy. He thought of reaching over to fix it, but didn’t. He looked at his watch, “Oh my. Gotta go.”

Carolyn looked at her watched too, “Oops, me too, have a class.” They left together. He was sure they caused a stir. Outside, alone in the hallway they both smiled at each other. Gary wanted to tell her how pretty she was but couldn’t get the words out. He felt like a high school kid.

She didn’t have that problem, “Would it be all right if I stopped by tomorrow?”

He grinned and said, “I’d love it.”

They each walked off in different directions. He felt so light headed his feet hardly touched the ground.

Ok, Good Friday. He checked his watch. The sun was going down. He figured Jessie would be leaving work soon. He reflected back, yesterday, Maundy Thursday, and it was sixth period. He was alone again in his office when he heard Carolyn’s gentle tap. He called out, “Yes?”