“True,” Thalia acknowledged. Then she smiled at me almost pityingly. “But was that a vacation, really? You were stuck on a boat with your daughter and her friends, Clark.” She turned to Trevor, “That was more childcare than vacation!” That got a laugh, which I joined in. “He came back looking more worn out than refreshed!”
If you only knew, woman, I thought, considering what little I knew about the body beneath her business suit. If I did everything I did on that boat with you, you’d be worn out too!
Jesus!
Now I was fantasizing about Thalia Fucking Williams? Fuck that noise! I valued my life, professionally and literally. The woman scared me a little.
She was still going to make me legit rich…
“Fine. Clark, you need to take a short vacation, too. No kids this time,” Trevor said firmly.
*
Wednesday, Yancey and I had drinks after work. We had used to do that all the time, back when we first became friends. After a while, the practice had dwindled. That probably had to do with the fact that it dwindled about the same time that Yancey started fucking my not-yet-ex-wife and had been feeling guilty about having done it. Had I known about that at the time, I imagine I would have reduced the buddy-buddy act just a tad more than Yancey had…
But now, I felt like that cloud that I had been unaware of over our friendship was lifting, and Wednesdays were looking like a renewed ritual.
I told him about the meeting, and my amusement at the looks on some peoples’ faces when Trevor made his comment about headhunting their positions if they couldn’t take a vacation. Yancey laughed. He worked for a big, established corporation, and never had any trouble taking whatever vacation they gave him.
“You know,” he said, taking a big slug of beer, “you should take Wanda on a trip somewhere for a few days. Somewhere like Vegas.”
“What the fuck?” I asked, jaw slack in astonishment.
“Sure,” he said, matter of factly. “She gets a shit-ton more vacation days than I do, and usually wastes them just hanging around the house. Spend a hall pass on a little getaway.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me, Yancey! This is supposed to be evening things up, not going crazy and leaving us in your debt!”
“Uh,” Yancey said, suddenly uncomfortable. “I think it is a good idea.” He hemmed and hawed and I got that queasy feeling in my gizzard. “Rebecca and I did spend those three days in Tahoe.”
“What three days in Tahoe?” I asked, after taking a very large slug of beer. “Rebecca’s never been to Tahoe in her life–certainly not while we were married, absolutely not without me!”
“Remember that Reno convention she went to?”
I wracked my brain… “Yeah. I think so. But that was Reno, not Tahoe. She even spoke at a seminar one of those nights!”
“That was actually just a one-day event. The rest of the time she was gone, the two of us spent shacking up in a condo by Lake Tahoe, while I was supposed to be in Sacramento,” Yancey said with increasing courage. “I’m sorry man, but I think something like Vegas is actually a really good idea.”
“Christ!”
And that, kiddies, is how I ended up spending the next two days making plane reservations and reserving a suite for two nights at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas for myself and my friend’s wife, only three weeks hence.
*
That Friday, it was my turn to host our neighborhood group of friends. Since it was summer, and at my place, it was a pool party.
Now listen: No, when I hosted my adult neighbors around that pool, it was not some crazy, skinny-dipping festival of middle-aged, suburban debauchery. There were several wives among us that made that fact a crying shame, but in our neighborhood, we were just not that kind of people. No, we hung outside, a few people sat on the edge of the pool and dipped their lower legs in the water. Mostly, we just got together, ate, drank, socialized, and engaged in a little, low-key flirting.
It had been that way since before my ex and I had divorced, though I had probably done a lot more flirting back when I was married. Once I was single, I had dialed that back.
The flirting parameters were kind of skewed with Wanda, at least currently. For the time being.
I was at the grill, trying to replenish the bratwurst. I had bought a new brand and… demand was exceeding supply. I had sufficient in reserve, but I had not cooked enough of them at the start and had been playing catch-up all night. Wanda appeared at my side and murmured in my ear, “Such delicious-looking sausage…”
“I’ll give you some sausage,” I growled back.
“Yes you will,” she chuckled. “Here, there, and everywhere in Vegas.”
“I’m going All In,” I parried.
“Take your vitamins,” she laughed.
And just like that, we segued back onto the subject of gardening. We both were starting to find Canada Thistle in our yards, and getting rid of that was a very important discussion.
Then Wanda decided to get weird.
“So Clark,” she suddenly asked, “when are you going to move on and start finding a woman or women for your life?”
“I happen to be enjoying one woman in particular right now,” I answered with a smile.
“Yeah sure, but… limited time offer, remember?” Wanda said earnestly, touching her chest. “You need to be working on the future, Mister.”
“Um, again, in the middle of a situation, remember?” I said uncertainly.
“You and I are not a situation. And we sure aren’t a relationship. We have a project, remember?” Wanda nearly snapped. “Clark, you were a fucking monk for years. You finally broke out of your shell, in not my favorite manner I’ll admit, but I was glad in principal to see the breaking out. I don’t want to be holding you back. Go out and get laid a little.”
“What? Now?”
“Not tonight! There are only married women here. Let’s not go down that road. But have a fling or too,” Wanda said.
“Now? I mean, before…”
“Yes. Of course.” The woman I was currently fucking, on and off, was practically badgering me to go fuck someone else in between…
“Clark, if you like them younger, maybe try that Stephanie dish who is always hanging around Mary and Becca. She’s a doll, and she’s a dear.”
“Stephanie? The bitch?” I asked. My mind began processing Stephanie in her various bikinis again…
“She is not a bitch!” Wanda said sharply. “That’s horrible!” I looked at her. “Okay, her sense of humor’s a little rough, but she has a heart of gold.”
“Really?”
“All the girls love her. She’s always willing, usually even happy to help out, with big things or small. It isn’t really my story to tell, but ask Mary some time about what Stephanie did for her.”
Why was Wanda inviting me to have conversations with her daughter? Conversations of an apparently intimate nature? My mind came back to the weird way she carefully refused to say that I needed to stay away from Mary in the future.
“Well, she’s out of my league,” I said firmly.
Wanda laughed. “I don’t know about that. But I will give you that she is Becca’s best-looking friend.”
I made a face and rocked my head side to side to indicate that that was debatable.
“I’m not sure if I should be flattered or outraged that you are talking about my daughter.”
“Flattered, of course, since she looks so much like you,” I said. “But…” I made the same face and gesture of ambivalence.
“Oh ho! Well, I guess our daughters do hang out with their fair share of hotties,” Wanda smiled. “So do you sit around and rank them during those pool parties?”
“I do not!” I exclaimed, totally truthful and totally indignant. I never ranked them. They were all tens.
And I had indeed already been down the very young women road. I did not need to widen that road any further, no matter how attractive a parkway that would make. “I’d just like to find a woman a little closer to my age, please,” I added.
“Trying to wean him off you already, dear?” Yancey asked, from right behind me. I jumped. I had had no idea that he had snuck up behind me. “Don’t be so ready to be done with Wanda yet, Clark. There are two more hall passes to go.”
My startlement had me momentarily crabby. “I’d think that you might be eager for this whole thing to be done and behind you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Yancey said. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added hastily, as much to Wanda as to me, “when it is done, I want it to be done. But… I’m kind of having fun with it while it lasts.”
“Really?” I asked, half sarcastically, half in wonder.
“Yeah,” Yancey said, almost wondering himself. “I mean, I expected it to feel weirdly good. Like it was healing. Cleansing maybe. And it does that. I’m already jumping at a lot fewer shadows these days…” He paused, as if not sure he wanted to go on. “But Clark? I also like that Wanda is having some genuine fun. That’s weird but true. What’s really weird is, she and I are having more fun as well. Every time she comes home? The feeling of taking her back, making her mine once more, all over again? Best sex ever,” he said firmly, moving to put his arm around Wanda. She snuggled under his arm happily.
I smiled at Yancey, and grinned at Wanda. “Oh yeah,” she said in confirmation. “Sex when I’m not always just a little mad at him in the background? Forgot how good that was.” She paused visibly. “This is working, Clark.”
I opened my mouth. What I wanted to say was, ‘Any time in the future, Yancey, when you want someone to bone your totally hot wife for you so that you can Reclaim her, I’m available.’ But I just closed my mouth, because that was utterly untrue. I hoped they never needed anyone else, and if they did, it was not going to be me, no matter how appealing the idea was.
Wanda disengaged herself from Yancey’s casually emphatic embrace and went in search of wine.
Leave a Reply