Chapter 45B

When the tour group got to Monument Park they each broke off from the lined group and checked out their favorite plaques and monuments. Joe sidled up to Shelley.

"Fancy meeting you here."

"You don't hate me do you?"

"No, of course not. I was disappointed, but knew I had to understand."

"It hurt me too, you know. I loved you like crazy, but things were just... that's it, "Just"..."

"You look different; something is not quite the same." Joe inquired.

"I had a jaw reduction. It seems all the years of wearing braces were for nothing. My overbite was genetic defect, not dental problems. It got worse and worse."

"Are you married?" she asked.

"No, how about you?" He volleyed back.

"Yes, I am, but I'm miserable. He's probably looking for me right now."

"Why are you late?"

"Yeah, I guess about 2 weeks late. I left him in San Diego and told him I would call him once I got settled someplace. I've checked in a couple times so he knows I'm not kidnapped or anything." She said with a relieved laugh.

"Kids?"

"No, thankfully. I hope someday though, but I worry about the CP, you know."

"You never gave me a chance to send condolences about Emily. She was a brave, smart woman." Joe said softly.

"Not a chicken shit like me who runs from her problems, right?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself. Sometimes we follow our heart, and it sometimes has blinders." Joe reasoned.

"Not married, huh?" Shelley said with a glimmer of hope.

"Well, I'm engaged to the most wonderful woman I've ever met. She's brilliant, and she loves me like crazy." Joe said with a big smile.

"Is she insanely jealous, or could we go to lunch and talk?" Shelley asked.

"Only if you want to go to Mickey Mantles, I have a reservation." Joe said.

Shelley laughed. "So do I, this is rich, huh? Stay with me for the rest of the tour?"

"Yeah, I suppose that wouldn't hurt, but I've got to call Selena at some point. I know too many people to be seen with someone." Joe explained.

"Selena huh? Is she Spanish?"

"Nope, it's just a name her parents liked."

"How long have you known her?"

"Going on about 3 years, I think."

"Is she divorced and have kids?"

"She's 21, please no comments. We've heard them all. You still like the stock market a little right?" He asked cryptically.

"Wow, is that a subject changer! Yes, I dabble a bit still. The money my parents left in trust for me and Emily is still floating out there. It was always my safety valve. It wasn't included in my dowry, so to speak." She answered thinking Joe was avoiding something.

"Do you ever see the warnings and bulletins from WSG on TV?"

"Yes, I subscribe from time to time, but I see them on the FNN."

"Next time you see them give a statement, the blonde who fronts them is Selena."

Shelley stopped in her tracks as some of the group began to pass them.

"I'm impressed; you did wait for the big upgrade from me." She said with self-deprecating chuckle.

"Let's get back with the tour and talk about the rest of this over lunch, OK?"

They finished the tour and talked or commented only on baseball. They met Jim Leyritz, who was working out in the weight room. He stopped and signed autographs for those who wanted them.

The tour ended at 12:30 and the group of 30 Yankee and baseball fans were all happy. Spring training was 2 months away and a pre-Christmas fix of the game they loved meant a lot.

"What time is your reservation for Mickey Mantles?" Joe asked.

"One o'clock, but it's in the bar. Tables are hard to get during the week." She answered.

Joe chuckled and held out the piece of paper he got from Joseph.

"1 pm in the bar, sorry, tables are tough during the week."

"You better call and see if you have permission to be with me." She said with a smirk.

"Please don't be like this, you had your chance." Joe said coldly as he dialed.

"Good morning Deneigh, Is Miss Hanson busy?"

"I'll try her Mr. Johnson." She responded formally.

"Hello, I always have time for you, but we're doing lunch in today." Selena answered smartly. "We have something going on, we suspect."

"Lunch is why I called, but not with you. I called to tell you that I'm having lunch with an old friend, an old flame to be exact. She was on the Stadium tour and we hadn't seen each other since,... since she dumped me, to be honest." Joe told her, owning up.

"Do I know about her?"

"No, but she was the woman who showed me that I wanted a smart woman if I ever got involved again. She's separated from her husband now, but I really need to talk to her, get some answers to old questions." Joe told her honestly.

"Why do I think I have to worry about this?"

"You don't have to worry because it's ME, REMEMBER?" Joe said with a little shortness in his voice.

"I know, I know. It's just the thought of you with someone else, even for lunch, makes my jealousy tendrils stand, but I know I can trust you." She said giving in.

"Selena, suppose someone called you and said they saw me with another woman at lunch today and I hadn't called you?"

"I know, I know, you're right. Full disclosure tonight?" She asked.

"Complete and full, I promise. I may invite her to meet you. She's been a WSG client, and might be even now I'm not sure. But she knows who you are from the TV, she watches FNN." Joe said trying to be fully honest.

"Uh oh, she's NOT a bimbo, is she? Maybe I better chaperone." She half joked.

"Selena Hanson." He said in a parental warning tone.

"Joe, have a fun lunch. I love you. Oh, I hope she's 50 and all wrinkly like a prune." She said as she readied to hang up.

"If it makes you happy then. I love you too. See you when you get home." Joe said as he hung up.

The cab ride with Shelley to Mantles was mostly quiet, just reminisces of previous trips to the restaurant.

They talked the maitre'd into a table for two opposite the bar in the barroom and they were happy they could talk. They discussed some of the memorabilia before she had a drink and turned a little sullen.

"OK, beat me up. You got the first shot in with your "you had your chance" comment before. You've been waiting 10 years to get a shot, go ahead." Shelley said with a quiver to her lip.

"I was sorry I said that the moment it came off my lips. I meant it, but I never should have said it. I never want to hurt you. I love you too much." Joe said apologetically.

"You still love me? I know I still love you, too. We built a lot in those few weeks." She said.

"Five weeks and 4 days. I would have made you my queen if you gave me the chance. We barely had a chance to get to know each other and I was planning our life together." Joe said misty eyed.

"Me too. I let the guilt I felt from Emily's stroke eat me alive." She admitted.

"What happened?" was all Joe could ask her.

"After you left the hospital she was stable, but I was mad you had to leave, even though you had no choice. The next morning when I sat down with the neurologist and I fully explained what Emily's condition was before the stroke he dropped the bomb on me that I couldn't expect her to speak or run her wheelchair again. I could try therapy at a hospice and rehab. I spoke with her and the fear in her eyes ripped me in two. (starts crying softly while talking) She was so smart and intuitive and she couldn't express herself one bit, she couldn't even move her mouth to swallow. That Tuesday they put her in the hospice and rehab and I sat and spoke with her. She could blink her eyes, look left and right and that's about it. She started spelling to me with eye blinks. She told me she loved me, and she wanted to die. I hoped we could make some progress, but nothing happened and they couldn't spend so much time on a hopeless case. I was moving her out of there when you called for me that Sunday. I figured I didn't deserve you and I would need all my time for Emily. I took a leave from work and went to private rehab in Ohio. She died there a few weeks later. I scattered her ashes near my parents' graves and some around the Public Gardens in Boston. She loved it there.

Then I went to California leaving you a lot of clues, but you stopped looking I guess." Shelley said with a lot of tears and regrets in her voice.

"Shelley, I'd been dumped unceremoniously before and I already learned that you don't chase what doesn't want to be caught. I was thirty and beaten up one too many times when I met you. You were going to be different." Joe explained.

"We WERE different. So different that it scared the crap out of me. That first night we slept together I expected you to get me behind a closed door, strip me, squeeze my breasts until they ached, stick your dick down my throat until I gagged or choked and then screw me for 30 seconds between my tits and shoot on my face. Do you know why I thought that? It's what the last 10 guys I was with did. I was so jaded I didn't even realize you were different. Emily knew. Jesus, she wanted to screw you that night. She saw you lay me out and screw the daylights out of me and was moved by it. She saw how much you cared for me." Shelley said as low as she could to keep prying ears from her intimate talk.

"After that night, everything with us was golden. I never felt so perfect about anyone, until now. Selena just used a bible quote on me, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven", from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3. There was a glitch in the plan, I guess." Joe reasoned.

"But why did it work out for you, and I'm still in the toilet?" She asked.

"I don't know Shelley. We might create our own Karma. I was there to save you and you made other choices. You have time to turn things around. Look at me. I was 40 when I met her and she forced me to date her. I could have children older than she is, but it happened." He reasoned.

"If you were less of a man I'd try to win you back, but I know you better than that. Your Selena has a great catch in you. I'll have to sift through a 100 guys who want to paw my tits to find one guy polite enough to open a door for me." She lamented.

"YOU have to stay out of bars. You are the blonde bombshell and you can't change that. Join a church and go to all the functions. Where do you think you want to settle?" Joe wondered, thinking he might help her out.

"A realtor found me a house in Upstate New York. It's only a couple years old and there was a default and I got it cheap in an auction. The agent in New York says the other houses, same style and age, in the neighborhood are 150 to 200. I got this for 84.5." She told him. "He claimed the bank wanted out. I saw pictures and I talked to neighbors."

"I wish you well. A housing boom is due, so unless it's a total dump, you probably can't lose. Where is it?" Joe asked.

"Greenbush, near Albany."

"Hmm, that's not far from me. I better introduce you to Selena. After July, we're living in the City here for 5 years but knowing what I already told her about you, there better not be any mysteries. I'll be in your area enough to make her worry. She trusts me in reality, but she has a little bug about women I've slept with."

"Joe, with all the rotten luck and impetuous things I've done, I don't need to add adulterer and home-wrecker to the list of my sins. There is no chance of getting back with my husband, but if adultery could get his hands on my trust, he would have me followed. Besides, I wouldn't ruin the one good man I had in my life." Shelley said waving Joe off in jest.

"If I'm the one good man you found, why in Gods name did you marry this other guy?" Joe asked incredulously.

"He seemed like a good idea at the time. I was lonely, horny and giving up on life altogether. I missed the companionship of my sister, the love and good feelings I found with you, and he made me sort of happy in bed. But right after we got married, he sort of lost interest in the sex, and then we stopped talking like we did before we got married. He constantly accused me of cheating, and I never did, so after 4 years I left. But I came back 6 months later for 2 more years and here I am." She said with her upper lip quivering like she wanted to cry.

"Why in Gods name didn't you come back looking for me? You knew how to find me." Joe asked.

"A very blonde moment I guess. I ached for you so much... " She started to say before getting up and going to the Ladies Room, visibly upset.

After 15 minutes Joe asked a waitress over and explained that the woman he was with had ran off crying and he wished she could go in and see she was OK.

"I promise I did not say anything to upset her. I didn't dump her, insult her, hurt her. She's upset at a situation from long ago. Tell her I want her to come out and join me. I can make her smile again." Joe promised her.

"Awww, what a sweet guy. If she won't come out I get off at 4 o'clock" She said with a bright smile and a wink.

A few minutes later Shelley came out and walked to their table.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you or myself. You asked me a question that I should be able to answer, but I can't. I still love you Joe and wish there was a way for us to go back 10 years. Your Selena is a lucky woman and it sounds like you're a lucky guy." Shelley said now more composed.

"You still don't have to travel like before do you?" She asked to start making conversation.

"No, I'm retired. My parents died in a car crash and I turned the business over to the employees with me as an absent owner. I just handled unions, and some government deals. I spent most of my time dabbling in stocks and I did quite well. After Selena puts in the 5 years she has to at WSG, they paid for her school, and we are both fully retiring and enjoying all of life. By this time next year my Dad's entire company will be owned by the employees." Joe said proudly.

"Well you're just one success story after another. Are you sure you're not rubbing my nose in it?" She asked.

"Shelley you have to stop feeling sorry for your self and pick your ass up and get on with your life before it passes you by. I was there for you and you threw me away and only you know the reasons. However, it doesn't mean that I ever stopped loving or caring for you. You are still an attractive woman with a knock-out figure, a good head on your shoulders and apparently have a few bucks stashed away to get your life back on track. If you stood at that bar I can guarantee you that you would get more than a few come-ons within a few minutes. You can't be a blonde as you think; you have to know the difference between a guy who wants to screw your tits in the back seat of his car, and a guy who wants to get to know you better. Stay away from the married jerks and guys who know all the waitresses names. I can't stand to sit here and watch you like this. Get a lawyer, get a divorce and get into your new home. Get a regular job, not a bar tenders job and your life will turn around." Joe said slowly, sternly, but soft enough he didn't broadcast to the whole area.

"OK, OK I don't need the lecture."

"Apparently you DO! All I've heard is 'Oh poor me' and you're so much better than that. In the 5 plus weeks I knew you back then we had a lot go under the bridge together and to think you've pissed your life away and are willing to throw the rest away, really pisses me off. Have you no self-respect?" Joe said, beginning to lose his temper a bit with her.

Shelley began to get the lip quiver again and looked at Joe hard.

"You know what you are, you're Emily. You're telling me all the things she would say to me. It just hit me. You used the expression "piss your life away" and "have you no self-respect?" They were two of her standard lines to me."

"Well then Emily was a smart lady who loved you and wanted only the best for you that she couldn't have." Joe said as he took her hands in his and squeezed. "And I'm not Emily, you are. Her spirit lives with yours. Promise me you'll make things better for yourself."

"I suppose I have to now. I told myself that one day I would find you and you would help me get on the right track, and you have. It just didn't happen the way I wanted it to. Can I talk to you when I need to? I want you for my boyfriend, but I know that can't happen and I won't try, but can you be my friend, NOT MY FATHER! "

"I know I've been a little preachy, but please! I don't want to sound like your father, but your friend. Any further talk of "boyfriend" will end our relationship. Selena and I are together forever and no-one can change that. I am as true to her as I would have been to you. Can you assure me that I can trust you?"

Shelley's eyes welled up with tears, but she otherwise kept her composure.

"I had you but I threw you away, through no fault of your own. I knew then it was something that I probably couldn't change, ever. I really expected you to look for me harder to give me time to resolve my guilt and get Emily back to some sort of livable health. I had you on hold when you saw the line as dead. I didn't know about your previous experiences of getting your heart broken. The one thing I did with you was communicate, that was what made us click, honesty. When I decided to take Emily to someplace that would take extra measures to rehab her, even though I knew in my heart it was hopeless, I didn't want you to talk me out of it. My parents each died of cancer before Emily became fully stricken, but they knew it would happen. After my Dad died Mom told me to get a place picked out for assisted living because I could never care for her. As long as there was a breath in my body, no one was going to care for her but me. Emily knew that and I think she willed her death in the end to free me. If I went back to find you then it would be like me starting my life again without my ball and chain. She wasn't my ball and chain, she was my twin sister, a part of me. I'm not sure if we could have ever restarted then. Life would have been easier then, without her around, and I couldn't live with that. I missed her too much. I hope you can make some sense of this. So, under all these circumstances I KNOW I can never get you back that way. You can be sure that I can be trusted." Shelley explained as tears dripped from her face.

"I understand how you felt and how your emotions fed into everything. Just understand that my love for you at the time was such that we could have overcome everything, but I understand how you were blind to that end. Give me the night to explain this all to Selena and maybe tomorrow night we could go out for a bite and we could all talk. I think she has to know you and understand our connection." Joe said wanting to leave and get out to digest the words and emotions of the afternoon.

"Where are you staying? Maybe we can share a cab."

"I'm at The Wellington until Sunday, and then I'm driving upstate, I guess."

"Come on, I'll have the cab drop you on my way. I'm at The Four Seasons."

They left Mantle's and a few minutes later while the cab waited in front of The Wellington Joe and Shelley shared a quick kiss and a deep hug for old time's sake. A check of his watch told him it was nearing 4 o'clock and his blood began to rush knowing Selena would be home soon. He had the cab go out of its way to check to see if she was walking and he actually caught her as she came out of the WSGG brownstone. She was surprised to see him, but ran to the cab.

"Was I supposed to be looking for you?"

"No, but I saw it was four so I had him swing by."

"Do I have to submit you to a lie detector test?" She asked.

"Only if you think I might lie to you." He said with a knowing smile.

"Was she everything that you remembered?"

"In many ways, yes; she is very special to me in many ways that I'll explain. If you're worried about looks, let me say that she is still a knock-out. She is blonde, tanned, and full figured, but not fat." Joe said with a smile.

"She's um... chesty, right?"

"Boobs the size of your head." He joked as she elbowed him as the cab pulled into The Four Seasons.

Selena didn't like the "boobs" comment and got out of the cab and walked in ahead of Joe as he paid the cab. She didn't even wait at the elevator for him, she went right up. When Joe got to the suite she was in the bathroom and Joe waited on the bed. After 5 minutes he called out.

"Essy, I'm sorry if I was a little frank about my description or if I seemed too excited about her. You know my one and only love the rest of my life is you, and she knows that too. Come out and we can talk."

The door opened and she came out, obvious that she had wet eyes.

"THAT'S what I was so pissed about; you seemed a little too excited about her. I don't like her already."

"Let me tell you all about our relationship and what happened. I think you'll understand better why I just can't let her dangle. She was the first woman I ever dated that was really smart, and I mean smart like you. I could carry on a conversation about anything with her, especially the market and finances. She was smart and savvy about the world and handled her own finances in the market before it was in vogue for the smaller investor. She managed a trust her parents left her and her sister, they were twins."

"Oh God, I can just see you, twins and four of those big boobs in your... " She started before Joe stopped her.

"Her twin had cerebral palsy and was paralyzed from the neck down with the exception of some finger movement! Now would you just listen before you put your foot in your mouth again?" Joe said forcefully.

Joe went on to explain the entire story about their 5 week relationship and why she meant so much to him, but he made it clear he had no interest in her other wise. She was just a friend he wanted to help out, if she needed it. In some strange round-a-bout way, he felt he owed it to her. Above all, he felt if Shelley met Selena it would give closure to their relationship. By the end of his explanation Selena seemed to understand where he was coming from. The fact he had a personal and sexual relationship with her made her uneasy, but she was always convinced in her heart of hearts that Joe was true blue.