Chapter 21

I woke up first the next morning as I had to be at work well before Jacqui did. She lay in bed and watched me get ready. I fixed a bowl of vanilla-almond cereal and took it to her, watching her eat it. She was still in bed when I left for work. I knew she wouldn’t be back home till about nine-thirty again, probably every night she was there except Friday. Friday I picked her up and took her square dancing. None of us had been to a dance for several weeks and it was fun to be with our friends again. They still didn’t know that Jacqui and I were a couple so she was still dancing with several of the guys. When she started learning to square dance, she was just a ‘friend’ who tagged along with Michelle and me. Then, it was natural that she would come with either me or Michelle if the other couldn’t come. No one suspected that we were sleeping together. At least I didn’t think they did. Jacqui always enjoyed flirting a little and it was obvious from all the attention she always received that the guys enjoyed it as well.

I hadn’t heard anything from Michelle. When Jacqui and I were snuggled in bed, I sometimes thought about Michelle and Shaun, what they were doing together. I hoped they were enjoying each other as much as Jacqui and I were. From what Michelle had told me earlier and what she took to wear, I was pretty sure they were having a good time. Plus this was the first time that Michelle would have seen Shaun actually working, other than that one morning in his studio. He was the announcer at the rodeo which entailed a lot of preparation and skill, besides a fantastic, western sounding voice. I knew that voice was part of what had seduced Michelle originally.

Saturday, Jacqui called me and asked me to come have lunch with her. It was the first time she’d done that and she sounded a little distressed. When I arrived thirty minutes later, she was waiting on a customer but I could tell that something was definitely wrong. She seemed pale and was shaking, almost like she was near tears. As soon as she saw me, she brightened a little but was still upset about something. She finished with her customer and told Tina, her co-worker that she was going to lunch.

When she put her hand in mine to walk with me to the food court, her hand was shaking. I looked at her but she didn’t give me any indication what was wrong. We ordered some Chinese food, I don’t even remember what, not that it matters. When we carried our food to the table, Jacqui didn’t touch it, she was close to tears instead. She told me, “You remember after we spent that first night together, I told you I was hoping to be a manager?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, this afternoon I was offered a manager’s position.”

I was confused. She’d been offered the position she was dreaming about but was this distraught over it? I asked her, “Congratulations, that’s a good thing, right?”

She looked at me with tears starting to fall, “It’s in Helena, Montana.”

I looked at her, suddenly realizing the dilemma she was facing and why she was upset. I think my face got a little pale too. I softly asked her, “How far away is that?”

She started to openly sob, “Four hundred and fifty miles! I don’t know what to do. They want an answer by tomorrow. If I turn it down I don’t know if I’ll ever get another offer. I don’t want to leave you!”

I thought quickly about our comfortable life, how much this girl had come to mean to me. I knew deep inside there was no way she could turn it down, it was her dream. We could pretend to keep a relationship, but it was too far. We’d become used to being able to count on each other to be there if either of us needed the other. To be friends and lovers. She was a close friend of my wife for heaven sake! I knew that was all about to change and for Jacqui’s sake, I didn’t want to stop it.

Jacqui wiped some of the tears from her cheek, then from mine as well. I hadn’t even realized I was crying along with her. I told her, “Let’s talk about it tonight, but you have to take it.”

She softly said back to me, “I know I do, but I don’t want to. I want to stay with you.”

I tried to comfort her a little, “I’ll still be there for you. We’ll be able to see each other. It’s not so far I can’t drive it once in a while.” I said this knowing most of it wasn’t true. Maybe we’d be able to see each other once in a great while, but not regularly. Then I had another question, “When would it start, how long are they giving you?”

“Two months. They want me there in just a little over two months. They said they’d pay my moving expenses and help me sell the house.”

Two months. Two months until our lives changed forever. It seemed hard to believe that Jacqui had only been in my life about a year. Now I knew I was going to lose her. I kissed her wet cheeks telling her, “It’ll be okay, you’ll see. Go back to work and don’t worry about it this afternoon. We’ll talk about it tonight and you can give them an answer tomorrow.”

We took our full, completely untouched plates of food and dumped them in the waste bin. We walked back down the mall to Victoria’s Secret hand in hand. When we got there, I didn’t care who might see us. I took Jacqui’s face in my hands and kissed her hard on the lips. Then told her I loved her and would see her later tonight. Her tears started again softly and I knew it was going to be a long afternoon for both of us.

I drove home, my mind in a turmoil. The day had started out so great waking up next to a naked, very beautiful Jacqui Taylor. Now we were faced with the real possibility that in two months it might not happen again, or at least much more rarely. I also thought about what I’d said to Jacqui a few months ago, that I wanted her to see other guys so she could start a family. She’d resisted, but living that far away it was definitely a real likelihood that she’d find someone to love and marry her. I still kind of hoped so, although the greedy part of me never wanted it to happen.

After I got home I moped around the house, waiting for nine thirty to arrive. It’s amazing how slow a clock can go when you’re watching every revolution. I thought about climbing on a chair and just moving the damn dial up! Not sure that it’d get Jacqui home any sooner though. I tried to work on this story a little but had no idea where it might be going so gave up after about six words.

I thought about the message I’d gotten from Trisha asking me to call her. I didn’t know if Jacqui leaving in a couple months would prompt me to call someone like her or make me resist it more. I decided to put that out of my mind for a while and see what happens. I definitely knew it was going to make it harder for me to see Michelle and Shaun together if Jacqui wasn’t there to soothe my ego.

One thing I did know though is that I wouldn’t interfere with Michelle’s and Shaun’s relationship. Michelle trusted me with Jacqui after she left Mike and I owe her the same trust. Doing anything other than continuing to encourage her affair with him would undoubtedly be the surest way to wreck our relationship. And the fact remained that Jacqui didn’t have anything to do with my desire for Michelle to have a lover.

Jacqui did get home that night. The first thing she said when she walked through the door was, “I accepted their offer. I called her back right after you left.” She seemed to be over the tears for which I was very glad. Not sure I was though. I tried hard not to, I wanted her to know she had my support.

“What now then? You said two months but you’ll need to find a place to live before then. Do you want me to take some time off and go to Helena with you to look?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out more Monday. They suggested I switch and take tomorrow off and work Monday so we can work it out with the HR manager.”

“Okay, anything you want to do tomorrow?”

“Sleep in, make love. Eat breakfast, then maybe make love some more. Maybe take a drive somewhere where we can make out like we did when we were dating.”

I really did like her concept of a day of relaxation! “What about right now, are you hungry? I’m famished!” I realized neither of us had eaten lunch and I’d forgotten all about dinner.

“So am I! Where do you want to go?”

“How about the Black Angus?” I looked at my watch. But we’ll have to hurry, I think they close at eleven.” It was 9:45 then.

We jumped in my car and drove the ten minutes across town. I was right, the sign in their window said they were open till eleven. We still had about an hour. When we went in there were two other couples waiting to be seated so I gave the host our names, Robert and Jacqui and we waited. While we were waiting, I had a thought. I wondered if Trisha was working tonight. I hoped so and presumed she likely was since she had been last Saturday. Apparently they were just cleaning off tables because it was only a few minutes until they called our names.

I asked the host if Trisha was working that evening and when he assured me that she was, I asked if it would be possible to be seated in her area. He asked us to wait for a moment while he’d check to see if she was available. He came back shortly with a smile on his face and again asked us to follow him, veering in a different direction from before, showing us to our table and offering us both a menu.

A couple minutes later a familiar face appeared at our table, smartly dressed in a knee length black skirt and white satin blouse. “Well hello again,” she said, “Nice to see you. Welcome!”

“Hi Trisha, this is my friend Jacqui. Jacqui, this is Trisha.” Then I explained briefly to Jacqui, “We met Trisha here last week.”

“Hi Jacqui, you must be the young lady I read so much about in the last few days.”

Jacqui looked at me kind of quizzically. I explained to her, “After we were here last week and Shaun and Michelle had made, umm, quite an impression on Trisha, I suggested to her she might want to read my stories on SOL.”

Then I turned back to Trisha, “We’re celebrating tonight. Jacqui was promoted to manager of a Victoria’s Secret store.” I didn’t mention that our ‘celebration’ was tinged with a huge degree of sadness at what that promotion entailed.

Trisha gave Jacqui a big smile, her pretty blue eyes beaming, “Well congratulations, I’m glad you decided to come here for your celebration.” Then she turned back to her professional self and asked, “What would you like to drink on your celebration night?”

I asked for my standby, ice tea and Jacqui asked for strawberry lemonade. Trisha said she’d be right back with our drinks, her long blonde ponytail swaying back and forth as she walked away.

After she left, Jacqui asked me what happened last week. I explained about the kiss between Shaun and Michelle that Trisha had watched when she stopped to take our orders.

“I’ll bet that shocked her a little, didn’t it?”

“She acted like she really enjoyed it. The rest of the dinner, we kind of flirted back and forth a little. When we left I left a note with my name and SOL website so she’d see the stories and understand what was going on.”

“And obviously she was curious enough to read them from what she said.”

“Yeah, the morning Michelle left, I had a message from Trisha on SOL saying that she’d read them.” I knew I was going to be treading on dangerous ground here, but I went on, “She also gave me her phone number to call her sometime.”

“Oh really! Seems like I remember another girl giving you a phone number at one time. You seem to have a habit of collecting young ladies phone numbers, don’t you? Are you going to call her?”

“I doubt it, I know my wife would like me to, but I also have another young lady in my life that I’m pretty dedicated to. I think between a wife and a girlfriend, it’s about all the female I could possibly handle.”

“She’s very attractive, don’t you think?”

I definitely did think so. She looks like she’s in her late twenties or early thirties, has nice boobs and legs, very pretty face. Funny how I just realized the ‘order’ in which a guy notices a pretty girl’s appearance. “She’s okay, but not nearly as attractive as my date tonight!”

Trisha interrupted our conversation by bringing our drinks. Jacqui seemed to be handling my revelation pretty nicely. She took a sip of her lemonade and told Trisha it was really good. Then she said to her, “I understand you’re maybe trying to steal my boyfriend?” Her tone and the twinkle in her eye gave a pretty good indication that she was talking in jest, not with any anger.

Trisha smiled right back at her, “I don’t know, is he stealable? Looks like a pretty good catch to me. Not sure my boyfriend would want me to steal him though, maybe we could work a trade sometime?”

Jacqui looked at me, then at Trisha, “I’d need to at least see a picture of your boyfriend first before agreeing to something like that.”

Wow, this conversation was getting more and more risqué by the moment! Not what I’d intended at all. I just wanted a nice dinner with Jacqui and hadn’t even thought about Trisha until we were here. Where the heck was this going to go? It was more than a little flattering and had my blood surging to have two pretty ladies talk about me like that! She’s kidding, right?

Trisha came right back, “Nah, I’m just a waitress. Remember that George Strait song, ‘I’m married to a waitress and don’t even know her name’? I don’t want to be just some anonymous waitress.”

“But Robert does know your name Trisha, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have anything against a waitress. I was just a sales clerk and he certainly didn’t mind glomming onto me.”

I had to interject a little, “Uhh, for the record, you were an assistant manager. But no, it wouldn’t have mattered.” And I gave Jacqui a nice kiss on her cheek.

Trisha looked around and apparently thought maybe she better get back to work, “I have a couple more tables finishing up, are you guys ready to order?” Her smiley face gave the impression that she really did want to continue this conversation but after all, she was working now.