Every Woman's Dream (26 page)

Chapter 42

Calvin

I
DON'T KNOW WHO CAME UP WITH THE SAYING
“M
ONEY IS THE
root of all evil,” but that's a goddamn lie. The root of all evil is women! I grew up in the Church and I believed in the Bible all my life, despite its inconsistencies and fairy-tale–like stories. If creation began the way the Bible claims, then Adam was doing all right until Eve came along. That hardheaded bitch started it all!

Despite the havoc women wreaked, I had once loved all of the women I knew and treated them with nothing but respect. That all ended when the woman I had loved—more than life itself—caused me to slide headfirst into a bottomless pit that I would never climb out of.

Her name was Glinda Price. I found out too late that she was a bitch from hell.

We'd met a little over eight years ago at the birthday party of a mutual friend, two and a half months before I joined the marines. At the time, she was working as a waitress. The first time I laid eyes on her, I knew I had to have her.

Glinda had come to the party with another dude, but that didn't stop me from making my move, and it didn't stop her. The fact that she had disrespected her date should have been my first warning that she was a she-wolf in sheep's clothing. But I still didn't care. She left the party with me without hesitation and we walked the three blocks to my house, holding hands and smooching all the way. We made love for hours; and when it came to sex, she was as good as she looked.

Glinda was too beautiful for words. She was twenty-four at the time, a year younger than me. She had cinnamon-brown skin, large slanted brown eyes, a smile that could brighten the darkest room, and long, thick black hair. She was petite, the way I liked my women. I loved tall, full-figured women too. But since I was only five feet nine and barely 150 pounds, having a woman larger than me would be too intimidating and difficult to maneuver between the sheets. I had almost married a woman my height, who outweighed me by thirty pounds. But one night when she caught me flirting with one of her friends and got the better of me during the fight that ensued that night, I decided to avoid larger women.

What I didn't know the night I met Glinda was that she was one of the biggest sluts in town. Not only did she get around like a centipede, she had previously worked as an escort for one of the most notorious services in the state. And when I did find out a week later, it was too late.

“That woman is so hot to trot, I'm surprised she ain't caught on fire by now,” one of my buddies warned me.

“I can say that about every woman I've been with,” I mused. “You can too.” This same busybody friend had once dated three women at the same time.

“No, this one gets
a-round
. Glinda spends more time on her back than a corpse. Poke that pussy as often as you want, but you'd better wear a heavy-duty condom—maybe even two—every single time.”

I did use protection when I slept with Glinda. But one night when we were both too drunk and frisky to care, I didn't. A month and a half later she told me she was pregnant with my baby. I didn't hesitate to ask her to marry me, but she was hesitant to accept my proposal.

“I know your whole family hates my guts, as well as most of your so-called friends,” Glinda told me with a grimace on her face. “After all, marriage is a big step.”

“Having a child is just as big a step as marriage, if not more. It'll probably be less trouble for us both if we're legally married by the time I leave for Camp Pendleton. Uncle Sam is tricky enough. I'd hate to get tangled up in a bunch of red tape when it comes to arranging benefits for you and my child.”

I married Glinda in Vegas two months after I'd met her. And because of that, Mama stopped speaking to me. I was hurt because I loved my mama to death; she'd always been the most important female in my life. But I'd been taught—in the same church she used to drag me to when I was a kid—that when a man got married, his first allegiance was to his wife, not to his mother. I didn't just lose my mama, siblings, and a lot of my other family members, I lost most of my male friends. The women of the ones who were married, or in committed relationships, felt threatened by Glinda. My only sister, Vickie, told me in no uncertain terms not to bring her around. She was married to a man who would screw a female snake, so having a woman like Glinda within his reach would have been too much of a temptation.

She was not pregnant, after all. As much as I wanted a child, I was glad it had been a false alarm. “Let's not start our family until I complete my commitment to Uncle Sam. I know I'll be getting deployed to Afghanistan and I'd hate to be over there worrying about you and a baby,” I told her.

“That's fine with me,” she replied, looking and sounding very relieved.

 

As much as I adored Glinda, I began to see things in her that I found disturbing. At the time, I owned a large tabby cat I called Georgie. He'd been with me since the day he was born. One morning, the week before I left to go serve my country, I saw something that made me flinch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Glinda kick Georgie when he brushed against the side of her leg. I let it go that time.

The very next day, she kicked him in front of me, sending him scrambling from the room, howling like a banshee. This time I had to say something. “I wish you wouldn't do that anymore,” I said, trying not to sound too harsh. “I know you're still upset about not being pregnant and me leaving next week, but I wish you would stop taking out your frustrations on my pet.”

“You know I'd never really hurt Georgie,” she told me in a serious tone of voice. And I believed her.

To this day, I regret that I didn't make arrangements for my beloved pet to stay with someone else until I returned home. In the first correspondence that she sent to me, she told me toward the end of her one-page letter:
I accidentally ran over your cat the other day and he died.
I was inconsolable.

Georgie had been like a family member to me. And the fact that I was somewhat estranged from most of my family made losing him even more painful. I grieved for days. And I got careless.

On more than one occasion, I had almost lost my life by not being alert and following instructions. In one week, I saw three of my comrades get blown to pieces by suicide bombers. I came close to ending up in the same situation myself, more than once. I eventually pulled myself up out of my depression when I realized the kind of hell the war in the Middle East was.

One gloomy day one of my comrades tacked a large photo of Jesus on a wall in our barracks. A few hours later, someone scribbled on it with black ink:
I know I'm going to heaven because I'm already in hell.
I was in hell in more ways than one.

I sent Glinda at least two or three letters a week. I was lucky if I received one a month from her. However, some of the few friends I still had wrote to me often, and they all eagerly told me about some of the things she was up to. She was spending time with other men, and she was doing it in the house I owned! Not only did I fear losing my life in a senseless war several thousand miles away from home, I feared losing my woman.

Despite all of the reports I kept receiving from my friends about Glinda, I prayed that she would still want me when I returned. I told myself that if I could survive the war, I could survive my wife's bad behavior.

I never mentioned the reports to Glinda in my letters, and I didn't plan to mention them when I saw her again. I had planned to spend my first leave since my deployment making love to her nonstop, or close to it. I had changed my mind about waiting to start a family. I wanted to get her pregnant as soon as possible. I thought that motherhood would make her change her ways and become a better mate.

 

My first leave did not go the way I hoped it would. Glinda did not greet me at the airport with open arms, but with a scowl on her face and a cold embrace.

“Honey, I'm so glad to see you,” I told her, nuzzling my nose in her hair, which was longer and more beautiful than ever. “You look tired,” I said before I could stop myself.

The last thing I wanted to do was upset her. I wanted her to be in a very good mood when we got home. I had told my friends not to call or come to the house for at least two days because Glinda and I were going to be busy creating our first child. She had other ideas.

“I'm fine,” she mumbled. She walked with her head down, talking in a low voice. “The stove is on the blink,” she grunted as we headed toward the nearest exit.

Dozens of people stared and smiled at me in my dress blues—the sexiest, most recognizable, and prestigious uniform in the whole military worn proudly by marines, and envied by all. Several civilian dudes saluted me as I strolled by. It saddened me to know that complete strangers were more excited than my wife about seeing a man who had put his life on the line for America. I was thinking about all the ways I was going to make love to Glinda and she was telling me that the stove was on the blink!

“We can get a new stove or get the old one fixed,” I said. “In the meantime, I'd rather talk about the bed . . .”

Her body stiffened when I put my arm around her shoulder. When I mentioned “bed,” I had never seen a more disgusted look on a woman's face than the one on Glinda's face now. She looked like she wanted to puke.

“That'll have to wait. My period just started this morning,” she informed me. That was the last thing I wanted to hear, because nothing turned me off like a bloody pussy. I told myself that if I could survive several months without sex and still be sane, I could wait a few more days.

“Oh. Well, it's a good thing I'll be home for a couple of weeks,” I said, forcing myself to laugh. She responded with a sharp grunt. We remained silent until we got into our four-year-old Prius and headed toward the freeway.

“Glinda, is something wrong?” I finally asked.

“Nothing's wrong,” she snapped. She kept both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road.

“Something
is
wrong,” I insisted. “I know you quite well and I've never seen you act this way.”

“What way, Calvin?” She glanced in my direction. The look of contempt on her face was so profound, it made my chest tighten.

“You're making me feel like an unwanted, ugly stepchild, but I still love you. You don't seem happy to see me, and you don't have much to say to me. I've been away for a long time and the least you can do is make me feel welcome to be back home.”

Glinda looked even more disgusted by now. With a heavy sigh, she said, “I'm just tired and I can't wait to get home so I can get some rest.”

We were like two strangers when we went to bed that night . . . after I had repaired the stove. With our backs to one another, she slept on one edge of the king-size bed and I slept on the other.

She felt like a piece of wood when I made love to her four days later, when her alleged period ended. But I had not been with a woman since the last time I saw her, so I didn't care what she felt like. I took my time and I didn't release her until I was thoroughly satisfied. When I finally slid off her body, she scrambled out of bed, moaning and groaning, and scurried into the bathroom. I didn't wait for her to return. I was exhausted from our marathon lovefest, so I went to sleep immediately.

The next morning was only slightly better. Around nine o'clock, I shuffled into the kitchen in my pajamas. Glinda had on a frumpy brown dress, a pair of shabby house shoes, and she had pulled her hair into a severe ponytail. Despite her dowdy appearance, she had on as much makeup as she would wear to a nightclub. I was pleased to see that she had prepared a lavish breakfast. I had not eaten grits and bacon since the last time I visited my mother's house. And probably wouldn't again, at least not at Mama's table. She was still angry with me for marrying Glinda and had not even written to me.

My older brother, Ronald, one of the few relatives I had who still communicated with me on a fairly regular basis, had written to let me know that Mama had been experiencing some serious health problems. I'd written to her immediately and even called her house a couple of times. She had ignored my letters and refused to take my calls.

The fact that I had given up so much for Glinda made me even more determined to keep her. I was not about to let my marriage end without a fight.

Chapter 43

Calvin

S
IX MONTHS AFTER MY LAST VISIT HOME
, I
RECEIVED MY HONORABLE
discharge papers.

By the grace of God, I made it through the war unscathed. In spite of everything I had to look forward to (or
not
look forward to) once I resumed my civilian status, I couldn't wait to get off the plane and step back onto American soil again. The most important reason I was so anxious to return home permanently was so I could work on my marriage.

I had written two letters a week to Glinda in the last six months, she had written me a total of three times in the last year. I had called the house several times, but not one time had I caught her at home. I didn't bother to call any of my friends or any of Glinda's friends and associates. It wasn't necessary for them to tell me what I already knew: she was running around with other men.

Not only did she not pick me up when I landed at the San Jose airport, like we had agreed she should, she was not answering my calls. I waited for an hour, hoping she'd eventually show up. She didn't. I didn't attempt to call a friend or a neighbor to come fetch me, because I would have been too embarrassed to let them know that my own wife had let me down. I finally crawled into a cab.

When I got to my street and saw our Prius in the driveway, my first thought was that something had happened to Glinda. All kinds of grim thoughts ran through my mind. I pictured her in the house, stretched out on the floor, unable to speak or move. Her falling and hitting her head on something would have been bad enough, but I cringed when I imagined rampaging thugs beating and raping her during a home invasion. My chest tightened; my head felt like somebody had batted it with a brick. I was afraid of what I might have to deal with.

Robert Franklin, a chubby divorced man who lived next door, was in his driveway when I got out of the cab. Before I could go inside, he trotted over, gave me a “welcome home” hug, and clapped me on the back.

“I'm glad to be home,” I told him. “Why don't you come over in a little while and join me and my wife for a drink?”

I knew something was wrong when Robert gave me another hug. After he released me, he reared back and gave me a pitiful look. “Oh, so she's back?”

“Who's back?” I asked, puzzled.

“Uh, I saw your wife leaving with a dude in a blue van around this time yesterday. She had two suitcases with her. . . .”

“Oh,” I said in a very small and weak voice.

“My brother told me that when he was at a bachelor party in a strip club last week, Glinda was one of the strippers.”

“Oh,” I said again, this time much stronger. “Do you know which club?”

“I'll have to ask my brother.” Robert looked at the ground, then back at me. He looked almost as sad as I felt. “I'm sorry, man. I'll still come over when you get settled so we can have a few drinks.”

“Maybe not tonight. I'll call you,” I said. I let out a sigh and dragged my feet toward my front door. I felt so weak I could barely carry the duffel bag that contained some of my military gear. I was glad I had my house keys on me. When I got inside, I went straight to the telephone. I called up everybody I knew and nobody was able to tell me where my wife was.

I let two weeks go by before I attempted to file a missing-person report. The cops laughed in my face when I told them my wife was a stripper and that she'd been seen leaving home with suitcases and a man. They practically chased me out of the police station.

 

Three days after I'd made a fool of myself with the cops, Glinda moseyed into the house a few minutes after eight
P.M.
without the suitcases Robert told me she'd left with. There was a smirk on her face and a huge chip on her shoulder. She wore a tight purple skirt and what looked like a bikini top under a white windbreaker. Her hair was askew and she had on enough makeup to paint the side of a barn, and she reeked of alcohol. She didn't say hello or ask how I'd been doing. All she said was “I just came by to get some more of my stuff.”

“Did you come alone?” I asked, glancing toward the front window.

“I'm alone. I came in a cab and I'll be going back in a cab,” she snapped.

“Wh-where the hell have you been? And where is it you're going to go back to?” I demanded, following her across the floor into our master bedroom. My hands were balled into fists and a knot was in my stomach. “What's this I hear about you
stripping
?” I could barely get the word out of my mouth. “Wasn't being an escort bad enough? I thought you left that wild lifestyle behind when we got married.” I was frantic. I was also glad to see my wife. I wanted to grab her and never let her go. She looked at me like I had scabs all over my face.

“I thought you'd be gone by now,” she said casually, rolling her eyes. I couldn't believe my ears! She stopped in front of the mirror behind the closet door and began to fuss with her hair. She didn't comment on the new brass bed and the gold-and-red brocade drapes at the windows I'd purchased the day before.

I was so stunned I had to grope for words. “Gone where, Glinda?” I asked through clenched teeth. “This is my home and I'm here for good,” I added as I made a sweeping gesture with my hand. I couldn't believe that this was the same woman I had married. “Glinda—” I didn't even get to finish my next sentence. She whirled around and glared at me with her eyes narrowed into slits.

“Look, fool, I've got better things to do with my time than sit around here waiting on your lame ass to come home.”

Again I couldn't believe my ears. “Glinda, talk to me. You need to tell me what's going on. If something is wrong, we can fix it.”

“Get outta my face, fool!”

I folded my arms so I wouldn't be tempted to grab her and shake some sense into her hard head. “Are you involved with another man?”

She moved to the bed and sat down hard, kicking off a pair of four-inch black stilettoes. “What if I am?” she asked as she began to massage her feet. “What was I supposed to do? And don't tell me you haven't been dipping your spoon into some . . . something.” She threw her head back and laughed. “I know those women over there in the Middle East are probably not as easy to get to as the ones in other foreign countries, but don't think for one minute that I believe you've only been jacking off.”

I moved closer to the bed and stood a few feet in front of her. “I have never touched another woman since I met you,” I told her. And it was true. I had not even looked at another woman since the night I met Glinda. “Please talk to me,” I begged.

She rolled her eyes again, then jumped up and strutted over to the dresser, where she began to root through her underwear in the top drawer. She had a pair of red thong panties in her hand when she let out a loud breath and turned to me.

“What are you going to do now? Go back to that dead-end–ass job at the utility company?” she sneered.

I shook my head. “I didn't want to go back. I received a fantastic job offer a couple of days ago. And it's a position that suits me better.”

“Humph. I can't imagine a job that ‘suits' you . . . other than a clown in that circus that comes through here every year.”

“I'll be driving an eighteen-wheeler, hauling lumber from Oregon and Washington to various cities in Southern Cal. I may be gone for days, even weeks, at a time. I hope that's all right with you. I would have discussed it with you when they offered it, but . . . I didn't know how to get in touch with you.”

Glinda dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “I don't care what you do.”

“You should care, Glinda. I'm your husband!”

She looked me up and down, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. I could not understand why there was an amused look on her face. “Yeah, you're my husband, but not for long!” she snarled.

My breath caught in my throat and I couldn't get a word out. I stood there like a mute, wondering what Glinda was going to say next. She could not have stunned me more if she had dropped a stove on my head.

“I want a divorce,” she said as calmly as if she'd just requested a glass of wine.

“A
‘divorce,'”
I mouthed. The word tasted like bile on my tongue. My head was spinning and I couldn't even feel my legs. You could have knocked me over with a toothpick. “You can't be serious!”

“Well, I am! And you can't stop me! You make me sick!” she taunted.

“Is there someone else?” I asked dumbly. My heart was pounding so hard and loud, I could hear it. I was amazed that I had not fainted or burst into tears.

“Yes, there is someone else.” Those words hit me like a speeding train. I wanted to holler, hit the wall with my fist—anything that would redirect my anger and keep me from wrapping my hands around her throat. Except for the war, I had never hurt another human being in my life. I had always avoided physical confrontations. I had never even had a single physical fight with any of my siblings, friends, or the school and neighborhood bullies. I knew that if somebody ever provoked me enough to get violent, I would make up for all the times I had managed to run away in time or had talked my way out of a fight.

As if what Glinda had said so far hadn't been painful enough, she hit me with another blow, which almost knocked the wind out of me. In a high-pitched voice, she told me, “And he wants to marry me.” There was a crooked smile on her face, so I thought she was just joking.

“Glinda, please tell me you're joking,” I pleaded, wringing my hands.

“Am I laughing?” she boomed, waving her hand and snapping her fingers.

I still couldn't bring myself to believe she was serious. How I was able to remain so composed was a mystery to me. At the same time, everything inside my body was falling apart. “But you can't just—”

“I'm pregnant,” she announced, even more calmly than she'd said she wanted a divorce. “He wants to marry me and I can't do that until I get rid of your lame black ass.” She shook her head. “I don't know what I was thinking when I married you.”

“You . . . you said you loved me,” I fumbled, struggling to swallow the huge lump in my throat.

“Well, I must have been drunk.”

“Glinda, we can get past this. If you give up this other man, I will raise the child as my own. Nobody but us ever needs to know the truth. I won't even tell my family.”

“Fuck your family! To hell with them and you! I know they hate me, and I hate them!”

“You can talk about me like a dog all you want to, but I don't appreciate you bashing my family!” I hollered. Some of the same relatives who had shunned me because of Glinda had recently started coming back around. Their support meant a lot to me. But it was too late for me to restore my relationship with Mama and tell her how sorry I was that I had disappointed her so severely. She had passed while I was still deployed. Nobody bothered to tell me until after the funeral, because that was what she had told them to do. I couldn't believe that I had caused her to be that angry with me. The woman responsible for the falling-out between my mother and me was not fit to live! A voice I had never heard before told me,
“Kill her. . . .”

“They don't give a shit about you, and neither do I! You're a bigger fool than I thought you were. And for the record, that other time when I thought I was pregnant, it was by this same man, not you.”

I felt so light-headed by now, I thought I was going to float up off the floor and hit the ceiling. “Then why did you marry me?” I couldn't believe how weak I sounded. My legs felt like jelly and everything else on my body felt even worse. Somehow I managed to remain on my feet.

“I don't think you really want to hear the real reason,” she warned.

“Yes, I really do want to hear it.”

“Because the other man was married at the time. And everybody told me what a gullible fool you were! I figured I could quit my damn job at that fried chicken restaurant and sit back and enjoy your military benefits. I knew that you would take good care of me and I could still do whatever I wanted. But . . . but my skin crawled whenever you touched me. The last time you fucked me, I douched with vinegar after you fell asleep. Kissing you is like kissing a week-old litter box! You're lousy in bed anyway. Do you want to hear more?”

I grabbed Glinda's arm and she almost jumped out of her skin.

“That's what I'm talking about! Your touch feels like ants crawling all over me!” She looked at me like I had just doused her with acid. “I don't ever want you to touch me again. Now, if you don't mind, I will pack up the rest of my shit and get the hell up out of here!”

I moved closer to her and folded my arms again. Then for some reason, I guess it was because I wanted to put some temporary distance between us so I could regroup my thoughts, I spun around and trotted to the kitchen. I snatched open the refrigerator and grabbed the first beverage I saw, which was a can of beer. Well, I wanted a clear head, so I put the beer back and reached for a bottle of water. I managed to gulp down half of it, but it didn't put out the raging blaze in my belly. I set the bottle on the counter and returned to the bedroom. As Glinda folded clothes and placed them into the opened suitcase on the bed, she was humming “What's Love Got to Do with It.”

I walked casually over to her and gently placed my hand on her shoulder. “Baby, I can't let you leave me.” I didn't even recognize my own voice. The words I'd just spoken sounded as if they'd come from another man. The voice I had heard a few moments ago spoke to me again,
“Kill her. . . .”